Dead Reign: Survivor's Stories
by Ravenwinggod
Summary: Follow several survivor's of the Zombie outbreak as earth is overran, and humanity clings to life, or whatever passes for it now. Rated for themes, language and violence.
1. May 4th, 2010, Detroit, Alex

2100 hours, May 4th, 2010:

Survivor Total: 7 adults, 5 kids.

Today hasn't been a good day as far as days go. Maybe it's because almost everyone I've met today has freaking tried to eat me. Maybe it's cause I'm stuck here in Detroit with little to no chance of freaking getting home. Or maybe it's cause I smoked my last cigarette and now I'm stuck in this freaking Doctor's clinic without a freaking smoke in sight.

Most likely its the cigarette part though. Yeah I know some people would be more concerned about the whole freaking zombie apocalypse thing, but I say frag that shit, give me a smoke and I'm fine.

Oh Yeah, forgot to mention that part, the freaking world ended today.

What do I mean you ask? Since I'm keeping this journal for myself, I should probably be concerned that I'm asking myself to elaborate on my own thoughts, but hey, do what you gotta do to keep yourself from not thinking of a smoke right?

So I guess I should explain this whole end of the world thing, I mean it does seem slightly important right? While I'm at it, I might as well explain who I am, and what I'm doing right? OK here goes. To start, my name's Alexander, but everyone calls me Alex. I'm thirty years old, I turn thirty one this winter, or at least I should. I'm a big guy, standing at 6'2, and weighing in at two fifty.

To get to the whole end of the world thing, we gotta go back a few days. We still don't know what's causing the dead to rise, and it seems everyone's got a theory. From the news feeds we can get on the TV, there's a list of possible reasons. So I'll just list my favorites, since those are the only ones I really remember.

Altrucure. This snazzy little drug vaccine was suppose to change the world. And like many, I'm leaning towards the idea that it did indeed change it. See this new little miracle cure was suppose to make us immune to such annoying little problems as Aids/HIV, most types of cancer, Ebola and other nastiness right? It did this by tweaking our genetic code, Kicking our immune systems into overdrive, and allowing our bodies to regenerate cellular decay. Supposedly this stuff was suppose to slow aging, and the deterioration of the mind as well. Well if its to blame the shit does as promised, it will even keep you alive after your dead. Now this stuff was so good, and the research on it was supposedly so lock tight that just about every country in the world gave the greenlight to its maker, The Benford Group in a matter of months, not years like normal. The stuff's only been on the market now for two months, but an estimated 85% of the worlds population has already received it! President Obama was real big on the stuff, preventive medicine you know? Which dovetailed nicely with his reformed healthcare ideas. Only now we're hearing from a whole shitload of scientists, researchers and doctor's that the supposedly lock tight research by Benford may not have been so complete. Where the hell were these guys and gals two, even three months ago? From what we're hearing now, someone in the government shut them up, and it's only now with the whole end of the world thing are they getting a chance to talk. This theory is my favorite, cause it makes the most sense to me, I mean tweaking our genetic code? How is that a good idea? This ones also the scariest to me. Me, my wife, my two girls, and my son all received the Altrucure vaccine last month.

Wrath of God. Yeah, you knew this theory would pop up. Mainly being screamed by every two bit hustler which we call televangelists. Funny, the bastards are still trying to get our money, even with the whole end of the world shit. I seen a guy today telling us that the dead had returned cause we had become to sinful. Claimed gay marriage, and our acceptance of homosexual behavior was to blame. Oh and the abortion rate was to blame to. Not to mention that we no longer allow prayer in schools and such. Anyway, you get the point, fire and brimstone at it's best you know. Funny thing is, these money hungry con men are promising that for a prayer donation of a hundred bucks or more they can keep you from turning into one of the walking dead. I don't know which is more sad in my opinion. The fact that humanity has leeches like this, or that so many people believe them. Personally I think if this is the Wrath of God, its not due to gay's and abortions, but because freaks like this can still scam their fellow man when everything's going to pot. Who knows, I might be one of the walking dead myself by tomorrow, if I am, maybe I'll figure out who's right.

Aliens. Yeah, Aliens, as in little gray men from freaking Mars or some shit. There was a Scientologist on earlier trying to tell us that the Zombie plague was due to some evil Alien thing named Zortex, or some shit. Apparently ole' Zortex has corrupted the alien energies that reside inside each human being giving us consciousness, or something like that. I'm not much into the whole Scientology thing, nor do I believe all that much in little green spacemen. After all the only aliens I know are Latino, and work construction. But I include this one just because it illustrates how terrified everyone who's still alive is. See at this point, anyone who can offer even a half baked answer is finding more then a few people willing to listen and believe them.

Now then, back to my narrative. I don't normally reside in Detroit, I'm a southwest kinda guy, I ain't really got much taste for this mid America bullshit. Freaking far to many people crammed into too tiny a freaking place for my thinking.

Well so then what the hell am I doing here? Well to answer that I have a confession to make. I'm a gamer. Yup, I'm one of those guys who likes to spend his weekends sitting at a table, a set of dice in my hand, mountain dew in a Dixie cup and cold pizza on my plate as me and my buddies explore a world of make believe.

Now don't go thinking I'm one of those stereotypical nerdy's who stay's inside at all times, and hasn't ever kissed a girl. Truth is I'm married, got kids, nice house, good job, the whole kitten caboodle you know? Pretty normal life Monday through Friday. Course I work every other weekend, but that's the breaks. So what do I do? Well, as amazing as it sounds, I'm a member of the Phoenix PD Swat team. Second in command, of the team to. Not surprising considering that before my current gig I served in the U.S.M.C Scout Snipers. Joined the corps after high school, course that was after I got my high school Girlfriend knocked up and married her. At the time I hadn't given the service much thought. I was your typical teen, wanted to party and shit, but with a kid on the way, and no time for college, the Corps sounded like a good option.

So I joined, did three enlistment terms, but after twelve years my wife, at home with three kids wanted her husband home. So I left the Corps. Funny thing is the only thing I was good at was killing folks, and except for the mob, their ain't much demand for that type of profession. Except as a cop. Didn't take me long to get on the force, a quick trip to the academy and I was pushed on into SWAT, as a sniper.

Got to grease nine guys once in a hostage situation, that's pretty much been the highlight of my police career. Oh, and I got in trouble for greasing the fools. Police chiefs are funny like that, they get touchy when you geek a few guys holding people hostage. Apparently it endangers the hostages, who knew? I tried explaining that I had a clear shot, and the fools were misted before they knew what the hell was going on, but apparently I just made it worse for myself. Got suspended for two months with pay, so hey, family vacation time right? We went to Disneyland.

So what brought me to Detroit? That's were the gamer side of my life comes in. See every year there's this Con.. err Convention for you none nerdy types, at the Palladium books warehouse. That's the folks who make such fun games as Rifts, Robotech, and Beyond the Supernatural. Anyway, every since I heard about the Palladium Con, I've wanted to go, but each year some bullshit comes up and I can't make it. First Afghanistan, then Iraq, and so on.

Well this year was different, I finally made it to the Con. I can't tell you how excited I was coming here either, been waiting for this shit for like eight years. So I get here and things are going great right? First two day's I gamed forty eight hours straight. But then today, while bellying up to the table for a game run by the man, Mr. Kevin freaking Siembieda himself, we started hearing crazy shit going on outside.

I wasn't all that concerned at first, people were talking about riots and shit going on, but this is freaking Detroit, I mean this is freaking murder town USA you know? So what if some people were going nuts in the street? News reported it as race related violence, and it was limited to the downtown area, no big deal, we're on the east side of the city, near the suburbs, so I ain't worried. There's talk of people going to the hospital in droves, but at the time, it's blamed on wounded from the riots you know? We didn't start hearing about folks just falling over sick for a few more hours.

Although the news of riots and such didn't bother me much. Everyone else at the table was. A bunch of people had their laptops with'em, and Palladium had set the place up as a Internet hotspot, high-speed Wifi, you know? So everyone with a laptops online, checking out this supposed riot the new's is talking about.

But it ain't limited to just Detroit, it's everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Every city in the world is reporting riots, and war's in the street. In the states, Cops, and National guardsmen are being dropped like flies. But the craziest part of the internet blog reports, are the mention of dead folk coming back to life, and eating the living. Yeah freaking zombie's.

As funny as it sounds, we gamer's have an easier time believing these wild ass reports then most folks have. After all, isn't a gamer alive who hasn't played a game or a million about a zombie apocalypse? So we all quickly start getting ready to throw down with some undead cannibals. Funny thing about conventions are that people like to dress up in costumes and shit, and wear props. You'd think we're the drama club from high school, or college or something. In a way we are, but I digress. So a lot of people have swords, maces, and other old medieval weapons right? So we're fairly confident in our chances of survival.

Only problem is the average gamer is a fat fragger who, despite having read a zillion books on weapons, warfare and combat tactics can't run to the end of the block without running outta breath. So you can imagine the carnage that ensued. It wasn't long before a Zombie busts in the door, and lots of folks have the sudden epiphany that this shits really happening, and it ain't no game. Which means if you die, you're really dead, or well undead. Needless to say, nerdy's start running to get away from the thing, but we're all packed into a warehouse like so many freaking sardines.

Lucky for me the initial zombie that attacked the Con was a cop, with his service issued .357 mag still in his hand. A quick scuffle and I had the gun, and a quick headshot later, I was taking his belt and holster. Unfortunately that one zombie had killed nine people by the time I got the gun. Those nine killed eighteen, those eighteen killed thirty six, and so on. It took less then three minutes for the sudden horde of undead to turn the nerdy convention into an all you can eat buffet.

I managed to get a fire axe along with the service pistol I looted. Took down nearly twelve of the freaks before I was overrun, having to tuck tail and split. I had came to the Con with my little brother, and I managed to join up with him before we had to run. He had managed to loot a longsword from one of the meatbags. Not sure where the thing came from, and it sure as hell ain't a professional made sword. I'm betting it's little more then a sharpened piece of flatiron, but it works in smashing a zombie's head in. Plus it's freaking sharp, but how for how long he can keep it that way is anyone's guess.

Anyway, so me and my little brother Stevie, manage to get away from the mass of undead, who are all moaning and screaming at us as we run right? Well, it wasn't long before more of the freaking things show up, and their moaning to. Which seems to attract more and more of the damn things. So we give up on the straight up fighting idea, cause there's just too damn many of them for that crap.

We managed to get out of the warehouse, and make a bee line down the street, running through alley's and side-streets, trying to avoid the main roads, cause there's tons of the things on them. Not that the side streets were empty, but it was better then the main drag. We're wondering to ourselves where the hell all these freaking zombies are coming from, but it takes us a few hours to put it all together. See, over the last twenty four hours people have been dropping over sick like flies in winter. All those people are dying at a mindblowing rate. So much so that their having to stack them like firewood anyplace that's got the room. Worse they ain't telling the public this news because the powers that be are afraid it'll start a massive panic and the whole system will break down. To bad, that's exactly whats happened, it woulda been nice to have some warning.

We got nearly two blocks away before we hit our first major obstacle. Seems the Cops had set up a small roadblock, and we ran right into it. Might not have been that big of deal, except their all dead, and looking at us as if we're a freaking to go meal. A couple of quick shots from the revolver, and a few swings of the ole' fire axe and the meatbag copper's are out. We snag the shotguns they got in the cars, along with all the ammo for them. Not bad guns, the police here are using the old Winchester pumpguns, with a pistol grip and no stock. Not my favorite, I prefer the Mossburg Tactical, with a 12 round detachable mag, but hey, you work with what you got. I managed to grab a second .357, not caring much for the .38 specials most of the cops are carrying. The .357's aren't the top of the line Python I carry back home, but their still Colts, mass produced King Cobra's, basically the same thing as the python, but these are built by machines on a assembly line. The Pythons are all hand built, fitted and tested to exacting standards. Yeah I know sounds like I'm selling the things, but still.

Stevie get's himself a good ole Glock 19, and several mag's. In the trunks of the car's are some emergency kits. First aid kits, road flares, duct tape, some bottled water, some ration bars, and some zip ties. Added to this is a nice convenient carrying bag, a crowbar, and a Multi-tool to boot. Plus each cops got a big ole maglite. At this time we got maybe three boxes of 12 gauge ammo between the two of us, two boxes of pussy ass 9mm bullets, and a box of stiffy raising .357 rounds.

We snagged a set of bulletproof vests, and some tact harnesses off the dead cops, along with a Kevlar helmet each. But then we hear that damn moaning begin, along with the great cat like screeches that the things release when they can smell you. Stevie did a couple of terms in the Army, not infantry, he was a artillery guy, but still, he's better trained then most civies. Not to mention we've both kept in shape, Stevie ain't no SWAT guy, he works in construction, busting concrete and framing up houses keeps you in good shape. So we hightail it the hell down the street.

We run a few blocks before we run into another pack of the freaking undead cannibals. Funny I should of been scared, but this pack is a mob of girl scouts complete with those funky little uniforms they wear. All I can do is laugh as the things rush us. Buckshot though makes short work of a human body, whether alive or undead, buckshot at close range turns bodies into freaking hamburger.

So after we splatter these little brownies all over the wall, we hear screaming coming from the roof of a diner. We look across the street and we see a pair of people on the roof. A waitress in a black t-shirt, and bluejeans. She's got a frying pan in her hand and is beating the brains outta any meatbag that comes near her.

Behind her, with a freaking camcorder is a big fatguy. He's got a grease stained apron on, and I'm betting he's the cook right? He's got the silly looking paper hat on, and he's just recording away. Not really sure, guess he's trying to show people whats out there, guess I'll have to ask him tomorrow.

Anyway, there's a horde of the things in the diner, trying to get onto the roof and turn these two into lunch. I look at Stevie, and he just shrugs, guess we got a bit of the hero complex in us, cause we decide to help the two of 'em.

We run across the street, as we go we're shouting to get the their attention. I reach the door first, and blast the first zombie I see in the back of the head. Stevie's quick to pump a few buck shot rounds into the back of a few of their heads to. Now normally, most rational people would start ducking down, looking for cover when people are slinging buckshot like it's freaking pez.

But Zombie's don't much care, apparently fear isn't an emotion their capable of. The freaks turn and start running towards us. It isn't long and we're in the center of a freaking mob of cannibals trying to munch us. We're blasting away, but the pumpguns only hold five rounds. So it ain't long and we're outta shells in them. We pull our pistols, Stevie ain't the best shot, but at pointblank range, even he can't miss.

But it isn't long and our pistols are empty to. We haven't got the time to reload, you'll find when being pressed on all sides by a mob of fleshbags you better have a melee weapon of some kind. Axe and sword time, and it gets bloody. Both of us are bit more then once, and I'm thinking its all over for us. I mean every movie or book you read about zombies says that a bite is how the infection spreads right?

Well, maybe it is, but so far I haven't changed, nor have the other three, and all of us have been bitten repeatedly. So were still speculating. It seems that the only way you turn into a zombie, is if you die. As far as we can tell, a bite alone won't turn you, but we could be wrong, no one knows yet, and if we change, it's doubtful we'll know either. We're twelve hours into our possible infection, and who knows if we'll change, or not.

But anyway I'll get back to the narrative of the day's events. So we're hacking away at the undead, and there's blood and brains everywhere. Well eventually we find ourselves clear of the undead in the cafe, and we're looking outside, and we see a bunch running, and shambling towards us. Seems Zombie's come in two varieties, fast and slow. Most are slow though so we got sometime we reckon.

Our rooftop compatriots come down off the roof, and after the initial hysterical thank yous for saving my ass from them, we introduce ourselves.

Our waitress is named Tiffany, a single mom of three she says. She ain't a bad looking gal, I can see how she'd end up on someones list to bang. But she is stacked pretty good, even if she is kinda pudgy in the middle. Course after three kids you gotta expect that right? Plus she's a blonde and has this set of eyes that just screams she wants to go down on you and she'll moan in delight the whole time she's draining you, you gotta love that in a gal.

Our cook's named John, and while Johns a fatty from hell, turns out he's also a film student, hence his walking around with a camera. Guy grabs a laptop from the kitchen, apparently his, and then say's he's all ready to go. I give him a funny look and ask him if he plans on running around a city of undead fraggers with only a camera and a laptop.

Course I might as well have saved my breath, cause that's exactly what he plans to do. Needless to say I put Johns chances of survival at nearly nil. But oh well, I'd rather have fatty behind me to sate the zombie's hunger. I mean after all, a guy as big as him can prolly feed a lot of zombies.

So here we are now, a posse of four and we see a horde coming towards us. I yell for us to go out the back and we make a bee line out the backdoor. There's some of the things out back to, but it's an alley, so their aren't that many. A few shots and we're clear, and running down the road.

It was then that I noticed that all of us are sporting injuries, and we need some medical assistance. We got a couple of first aid kits from the cops car's we took at the roadblock, but that ain't gonna do a lot, we need real medical care. I got some medical training in the Corps' but not a lot, ditto for Stevie. Tiffany isn't got anymore then the two of us, and John hasn't got the sense god gave a rock. So we ain't got much choice but to find a doctor, or something near to it.

Problem is when people started getting sick the first places they went were the doctor's, clinics, and hospitals. And of those that got sick, all of them died. The dead didn't stay that way, they came back as the first wave of zombies, starting the whole problem. Worse we're not sure how many people got sick and died to start off with. The few broadcasts on the radio and TV we've managed to get are claiming upwards of 50% of the worlds population died in the past twenty four hours, and their just now telling us about it. Since the dead rose the death total is projected at 60%-75% of the worlds total population. Worst those that died are now running around looking for the remainder of us humans still living.

But we didn't know these little tidbits at the time. We're still under the impression that not many people are sick, and that while there's zombies running around, their mostly out and about. How wrong we were.

We found a clinic after about an hour of running and gunning. When we found it, the sun was starting to dip below the horizon. The clinic is a Multi-storied thing, and we run into the ground floor, not really thinking about the possible danger. I mean we saw some people inside, and assumed it was safe.

I should of known better, after all in the Corps we're always saying that assumption is the mother of all frag-ups.

Anyways we run into the building, and only after we're locking the doors behind us do we realize. All the people we saw moving around inside are dead. And we just locked ourselves inside with them.

Talk about the fly running into the spiders web. However we didn't have time to reflect on our stupidity, the undead are on us in a heartbeat, and we're fighting for our lives. I don't really remember much of the fight, it all kinda blurs together into one big tide of blood and gore. I remember shooting until my gun runs dry, then switching guns. It ain't long before I'm outta bullets in all my guns, and I'm swinging the axe about. Funny thing is I remember not being scared, maybe cause I'm already figuring I'm dead, so why be scared.

Anyway, we didn't die, else I wouldn't be writing this now. We finally got clear, and I'm reloading my guns. We can hear the damn things on the floor above us, moaning and screeching, and we can hear screams. As soon as I'm reloaded I make for the stairs, taking them two at a time, until I hit the landing and doorway for the second floor. Stevie's behind me, maybe by three or four steps. We pull open the door, and move into the floor, and for the first time I remember being horrified.

You see the second floor is the pediatrics level, and there's all these women, and kids on this floor. Half the women are pregnant, and the other half are either pregnant and undead, or soon to be. And theirs all these little kids running around, either trying to get away from their mothers who are trying to eat them, or trying to catch their mothers to eat them.

There's screams and crying and for a few seconds I'm just too horrified to do anything but stand there and watch. But then a kid runs up to me screeching and snarling. At that point the instincts of several tours of combat kicked in, and I blasted the little thing in the face, blowing its head off. The thing drops at my feet, but it's followed by another, and another. Once more we're killing to survive, and things become a blur again.

When its all over, us four are still alive. We even managed to save a few of the kids, and a pregnant teen whose a kid herself. Poor thing just turned thirteen, and she's six months along. Tiny thing, I find myself wondering if she'll survive giving birth to the twins in her belly. But that's for later. We gotta survive long enough for her to give birth. Our pregnant girls named Maria, little Spanish girl whose parents came here illegally and had her, hoping to give her a better life.

Of the kids we saved, we've got four, two boys, and two girls. They range in ages from three to nine, and the lot of them are so traumatized we haven't gotten a word out of them. We've yet to come up with a name for them, but they follow Maria around like she was their mother. Poor things seem to feel safer with her then us. Right now the lot of them are sleeping together in a makeshift bed nearby. The kids are scared of us, but Maria is sticking to Stevie like he was her freaking dad, or boyfriend. Not sure which.

But we're only on the second floor at this time, and we got two more to go. Maria was thanking us hysterically, and the kids are still hiding. I tell her to round up the kids and to stay on this floor, after all, everything's dead here.

Tiffany, our pudgy waitress is breathing heavy, and I notice she's really pale. Looking her over I see she's got more then a few good bite marks on her arms, and one nasty bleeding one on her thigh. I ask her if she wants to strip here in front of everyone so I can bandage her up, or if she wants to go to a side room. Tiffany's a smart gal, she shakes her head and moves over to a clear spot and starts taking her pants off. Following behind, I wait till she's sitting and take out the first aid kit I got. She gives me a brave smile as I take out a pressure bandage. I gotta hand it to her, she's a tough gal, cause all she did is wince as I fix her thigh. She even laughed at my attempt to cheer her up by commenting on her undies. She's wearing a nice set of see through lacy g-string things, and I'm sitting at eye level to her goods, so you can see why I commented on it.

I cleaned her thigh with some of the bottled water I got in the emergency kit, and I put some antibiotic cream on the wound before covering it with the bandage. I let her sit a few minutes, before she put her jeans back on. Partly cause I was enjoying the sight of her ass half naked, and partly cause I figure she needs the rest. She's a healthy woman, but not use to this kind of thing.

During that time, we're listening to the sounds on the floor above us, there's more of the damn things, and we can hear the living up there scream as they die and join them. I can't tell you how terrible that feeling of helplessness is listening to other people die. Words, at least mine, can't begin to describe it.

As we're listening to this I notice Tiffany's crying, and not able to think of anything else I take her in my arms and hold her a few minutes. In case your wondering, no I'm not that sensitive of a guy, but even I can tell what she's thinking, her three little ones are probably one of those damn things, or like us, soon to be. Without really thinking about what I'm saying, I tell her we'll find her kids as soon as we get patched up and rest a bit. Funny thing is my words must have brought her some amount of comfort, cause she nods her head, and kisses my neck. Whispering thank you into my ear. Yeah, it turned me on. Is it bad that I'm thinking of banging her?

But I put those thoughts aside, and gently pat her back telling her to get dressed, we got work to do. She nods again and after wiping the tears from her eyes, gets dressed. Me and Stevie reload and we head up the stairs again. I notice Tiffany's standing closer to me as we go up the steps, and I'm thinking this is a good thing. Still thinking of banging her.

Anyway we hit the third floor and this time we do things a little smarter, I crouch down at the door, pointing my head to the left for Tiffany to stand, and then wave Stevie around to my back. Stacked up I open the door, and quickly put my pumpgun in front of me. There's not as many on this level, maybe twenty or so, but as soon as the door opens they come running, or limping along. Like I said, Zombies are mostly slow moving things, so even though they're stumbling along at a snails pace, that's their version of a charge. Lucky for us, there isn't any of the runners up here, just the slow moving kind.

I dropped five with my pump gun, before handing it to Tiffany, along with a handful of shells. Pulling out my first revolver, I drop six more. Tiffany gets the pumpgun reloaded, and starts blasting at the on coming wall of undead. She ain't the greatest shot, but their getting close enough that it don't really matter much. She's a stout gal, and I smile at her as she handles the 12 gauge with more then a little toughness. She returns my smile and even gives me a wink, and then I notice, she's got blue eyes.

Funny I didn't notice that before. But at any rate, we still have a few of the things coming down on us. Stevie's doing his best to drop them, but he's outta loaded magazines for the Glock, and we ain't got the time for him to reload the ones he's got. I growl at him that he should have done that while I was wrapping Tiffany's leg. Like always my little brother shrugs, and says my bad, as if that's an excuse or something.

Luckily by then there's only like five or so of them still moving. Holstering my six gun I grab the fire axe and move forward, splitting their skulls like firewood. Stevie's beside me, his makeshift sword bashing as much as it's cutting. Before we know it, the things are all dead.

We yell for anyone still alive on the floor, as we're looking at the dead things all over the floor. To our surprise a nurse pops her head out from behind the desk. She's messed up pretty good, got a chunk missing from her thigh, and several from her arm.

She's about my age, brunette, and like Tiffany a little pudgy, but she ain't got Tiffany's top if you know what I mean. Not a bad looking gal either, even if she's covered in blood, most of it her own. Stevie moves forward, doing his best to patch her up. She's scared outta of her mind, as nearly being eaten alive does that to you. She thanks us and after Stevie gets her patched up, she nearly jumps on him as she hugs him.

I find it kinda funny, though why I don't really know. Maybe it's the whole craziness of the situation. Maybe it's the fact that Stevie grabbed her ass as she did so. Anyway she just clings to Stevie for a few minutes before I tell everyone we're going up to the fourth floor to clear it. Not much sense in taking shelter in a place with the walking dead in it is there?

I remind Stevie to reload his Glock's magazines, and hand Tiffany some more shells for the pumpgun. Then I reload my revolver, and move to the stairwell. I wait a few minutes, before everyone joins me. John's still recording everything, and I'm getting more then a little annoyed at the fatman's stupidity. But I figure he's still the most likely to be eaten, so I let it slide, after all, no need to upset the bait right?

So then everyone's in the stairwell with us, and I have a thought, turning I ask the nurse her name, and she laughs, having forgotten all about it herself. April she says is her name, and we introduce ourselves quickly. Then we move up the stairs to the fourth floor. It's funny, but we didn't hear anything from the fourth floor, and as we're going up I hit on this little detail. Looking at April I ask her if anyone's up here. She shrugs, telling us she has a friend that works up here, who she knew came in today cause they ride to work together.

I ask her what the fourth floor does, and she laughs, Elderly care, she says. Well now I'm worried that we're going to find a floor full of old geezer Zombie's but when I get to the door I find it locked. I knock on the door a few times, yelling for someones attention. A moment later an old geezer in a white coat looks out the little window and nearly feints at the sight of us. I admit, we look a lot like the undead ourselves, pale, covered in blood, and looking for imminent violence, but I laughed at the old timer. Apparently my finding his discomfort humorous was all the proof he needed that we're in fact alive. So he unlocks the door and lets us in.

Inside we find this level clear of any zombies, even more impressive, the doctor's still alive, even if he is old and got one foot in the grave. A skinny woman ran past me, and I nearly shot her as she screamed happily and grabbed April in a hug. If not for Aprils own scream of delight I woulda popped the woman in the head. Having just ran across several zombie infested area's, I hope you can understand why I was a bit twitchy.

Anyway we tell the Doctor that we need some serious medical care, and he agrees to treat us, assuming we can get him downstairs to the clinic's supply room, and the pharmacy. Again, I think you'll understand why we easily agreed to this plan.

Going down wasn't nearly as bad as going up, as we'd already killed all the damn things trying to eat us. Once on the ground floor we watched as the Doctor fills his black bag with stuff. Then fills a second and third bag with shit. Where he found the bags I don't know, and truthfully I don't really care. His looting done he nods for us to go back upstairs. A quick stop on the 2nd floor for Maria and the kids, and we're on our way back up.

Despite being old as dirt, Doc handles the sight of all the blood and gore better then I imagined he would have. Turns out he was a surgeon back in 'Nam, so to him this isn't all that bad. Funny but the old timer can spin a good tale or two if you let him. He's a skinny guy, about 5'10 or so. Got a head full of white hair, cut short like a lot of old guys do. Wears a mustache of white hair to, and believe it or not he's got the old fashion John Lennon glasses.

Doc gave us his name as he and the skinny nurse looked us over for triage. Say's his names Samuel, and the Skinny nurse is named Melissa. Melissa's pretty I guess, if rail thin women, without any tits or ass are your thing. I guess she's got a top, but not enough for me to notice. Funny, Maria's better stacked then her, and she's just a kid in a training bra. Ain't life a hoot?

So the Doc patches us up. As we wait for our turn, we're sitting in the waiting room, and the Doc has this big ass TV hanging on the wall. We're watching it, and that's when a lot of the details I've been putting into this so far become known. Like how people are getting sick all over the world and dieing. Not to mention by this point even the news is talking about zombie's. They got people from the C.D.C, and other government officials on the news feeds. Everyone's saying the same thing, stay inside, search and rescue will come to you, blah, blah, blah.

But what they aren't talking about is the fact that most of the medical community is dead, along with the cops, firefighters and other first responders. Well dead I guess isn't the right word for it, undead.

It's at this point that I feel more then a little dread shoot through my spin. My wife's a nurse to, and I'm just hoping she didn't answer her phone and go in today. She's suppose to be on vacation with me here at the Con, so she's hopefully at home with the kids. I tried calling, but the systems down. Apparently the level of call traffic is so great that no one can get through to anyone.

After the Doc got me patched up, I sat back down in the lobby, watched some strange survivalist thing they're showing. Teaching people how to fight and kill the damn zombies. But telling someone unused to a gun to shoot them in the head, and that person actually doing it are worlds different.

Shortly afterwards Tiffany came out and sat down beside me. She curled up next to me, and asked me to hold her. I know she's scared, hell even I am, not knowing the fate of your loved ones is worse then anything. I wrap my arms around her again, and pull her close. I know some folks might be thinking that I shouldn't have been holding Tiffany like I was, but the truth is, if my wife's still alive, I pray that she has some guy to hold her now. It's funny how reassuring a human touch can have on one's mental condition. I hope that Heidi, my wife has that now, more then ever.

After awhile it became apparent that the news is just repeating the same shit over and over again. No one knows whats the cause of all this, and no one knows how long this is gonna last. President Obama gave a quick speech, just before they herded him away with several top level scientists, and military brass to an undisclosed bunker.

It was the expected bullshit, remain calm, remain indoors, your government is doing everything in it's power to save it's own ass, and you poor fraggers are dead. Martial law is being declared starting at 1900 hours tonight EST. Funny, I doubt there's that many troops left to cover the whole country now. Of course our forces are being recalled from overseas, but like everyone else, I doubt those poor bastards are gonna live long enough to re-deploy here in the states.

Tiffany asks me if I'll sleep with her. Not sex, just sleep, she's still scared and finds things better when she's being held. Despite being a tough ex-marine, I feel the same way. I wonder if that makes me something less? So she and I have made up a pallet together, not much, just some clinic blankets and pillows spread out on the floor. She's gonna sleep with the pumpgun next to her, and ditto for me and my revolvers.

So why am I writing this? Hell where did I find the paper for it? Well you may have noticed the front cover say's medical journal. Snagged this from the supply closet, apparently its for patients to keep a journal of their symptoms, as well as their treatment, or rather that's what it was printed for. Nice thing, notebook sized, got a tough plastic cover, and metal spine to hold the pages together. I snagged a stack of them, as each of these only has like 250 pages or so, and I've already written twenty.

Hell I'll prolly be one of the damn things tomorrow, but maybe not. I guess I'm writing this to keep from going crazy. Or maybe I hope that if I do die, someone living will find this, and I will, in someway be remembered. Not really sure why I'm keeping it. Anyway, gotta go for now, Tiffany's getting ready for bed and she's asking me to put this down and hold her. So, here's hoping there's a tomorrow.

Damn I need a smoke.


	2. May 5th, 2010,Detroit, Alex

2100 hours, May 5th, 2010.

Survivor Total: 10 Adults, 10 Kids.

Well today has been much better overall, I got smokes! Oh and obviously I'm not a zombie, else I wouldn't be writing this tonight, but that goes without saying.

Just for the record, the bites don't seem to turn you, unless you die from the initial bite. I say this cause none of us that were bitten have turned, and it's been well over twenty four hours since the initial exposure.

Today we left the clinic, pretty early in fact. We got a wake up call at 0500, unfortunately that wake up call was from a UH-60 Blackhawk crashing into the building next door. Seems the Air Force Search and Rescue units are in the air, but a lot of them are infected. I don't think I need to describe the dangers of zombies in an enclosed aircraft. We left the clinic when it became apparent that if we didn't we'd be caught in the raging inferno the helicopter caused upon impact.

To hell with martial law though. It's a freaking warzone out there. What few living units of the DPD, national guard, army, and marines that are on the ground are shooting at nearly everything, and everyone. We had to take down a National Guard roadblock early this morning. That's bad, but good for our survival, which at this point I put higher. We even managed to collect one trooper, a acne faced private that hasn't even gone to boot camp yet. Seems the fool signed up to go to collage on Uncle Sam, but unfortunately when this shit hit, the guard activated everyone on their rosters. Kid didn't have a clue as to what he was doing, even worse, his fellow's weren't that much better trained then him.

I can understand their position though. Seems more then a few street gangs have survived, and their giving the cops and soldiers they meet hell. Worse all the dead troops are still carrying their standard issue M-16's with whatever ammo they had left when they died, and the gangbangers are picking those up like their Pez. Once a gang gets it's hands on some big boy guns, they go all wild west and take over a neighborhood. Funny, we haven't heard anything from the government in nearly 18 hours, yet the little bangers are taking cash like it was gold. Seems if you pay the fee, the little freaks will give one protection in their hood. They call this protection money "rent". Oh and then there's the "tolls" they charge for using their roads, and streets.

You'd think that paper money be worth squat right now, but apparently people have forgotten that it's worthless, what few stores we've found still open are charging exorbitant fee's for everyday items. Cigarettes, gas, food, water, and all the other essential items are easily ten times their pre-zombie cost.

Good news is I got five cartons of smokes in my rucksack, along with a fifth of jack. Yeah maybe not essentials for you, but for me it is. We've taken to looting bodies, which so reminds me of D&D it isn't even funny. Got a fat roll of cash in my rucksack to.

After we left the clinic, we headed towards Tiffany's babysitter. I had promised her we'd go find her kids, and despite the delay in heading to Phoenix, I figure a few days to get her some peace of mind is worth it. Besides, I'm kinda sweet for her, so that's prolly got something to do with it. And to be truthful, I live on the outskirts of Phoenix, so I figure my wife and kids are fine. The reports we're hearing say that the zombies are worse in urban area's. Which makes sense, more people, means more zombie's right? Since my house sits on five acres and my nearest neighbor, which is my little brother, lives five miles away, I ain't to worried about them there. No my only fear is that Heidi went to work, and never came home. Or if she did she.......

Nevermind, not going down that road. She didn't go to work. So her and the kids are safe.

So like I said, we headed towards Tiffany's babysitter. Tiffany didn't live far from work, maybe two, or three miles inwards of the city. The babysitter was in the same building as her, and we figured we'd find the place crawling with undead.

We didn't, what we found was a project crawling with gangbangers collecting rent. Tiffany's babysitter was a sixteen year old drop out. Girl wasn't really good at school and figured she'd take her chances making a living in the real world on her smarts alone. Poor girl just isn't that smart.

Anyway when we get their the bangers have the area cordoned off. They'd thrown up as much junk as they could find, from busted cars, to junk left in the street, anything to make a serviceable wall. Thing is, they'd done a pretty good job of it, and they were still working on the wall when we got there. Not surprising considering it's only been about twenty four hours since this shit's started.

Anyway, those who don't have the money to pay the rent can perform work for the gang to make up the difference. Basically it amounts to slavery. They got a bunch of the neighborhood men out working on the wall. When we reached the place, they were just putting up a set of crude towers made from lampposts wielded together, with wooden shipping pallets as walls and flooring.

Anyway the dumb freak at the gate there looks like someone straight outta a rap video, gold teeth, and the crotch of his jeans down to his knees. He's got a hat made form panty hose and I'm thinking the kid really needs to lose his head, make him a whole lot prettier you know?

But Tiffany runs up and asks him if her kids and the babysitter's OK. Apparently the little punk is someone she knows, cause he laughs and says their fine. Except they can't pay the rent, and BJ, the Babysitter, has until noon to put out, or get out. Seems the gang is taking it's rent money outta women in other ways then work.

Tiffany tells him she just wants to get her kids, and some cloths for them and herself from her apartment. She tells the punk that the gang can have her stuff in it if they let her get her kids and a few little things, like pictures and shit. The punk thinks this over for a bit, then picks up a walkie talkie and starts talking into it. The gangbanger tells his buddies what Tiffany's offering, and it's quickly agreed, she can have her kids, and some of the stuff, but they want one of their own there to make sure she doesn't take anything worth something.

I admit it was frustrating, I so wanted to blast the little bastards, but Tiffany wouldn't have any of it, not that I can blame her with her kids involved. So Me and the others popped a squat while she went through the gate, and ran over to the apartment. Meanwhile the little freak with the teeth is eyeballing me, and making me regret not just shooting him in the face when I wanted to.

I looked away to keep the peace. Thinking back on it, that was probably the smartest thing to do, cause once the little idiot thought I was scared of him, he stopped.

It took Tiffany about twenty minutes to get her kids, some cloths, and some of the personal things she wanted out of the apartment. I was starting to get worried that the bangers had double crossed us when the gate opened again and Tiffany came out with a stroller, and two kids in tow. Along with her was a teenage girl done up in that Halloween style that the kids all dress in nowadays. Emo you know? Goth is hot, but this girl looked like a cheap imitation of it. Anyway she had decided to take her chances with us then put out to the gang. Not that I blame her.

Tiffany introduced us to BJ, and at first I could only laugh at her name. I have to admit it's hard to imagine a girl named after oral sex that wouldn't be willing to put out. Turns out her real names Bethany Jane, or some shit. She thinks that sounds redneck so she goes by BJ. Not really sure which is worse to be honest.

Anyways BJ would be pretty, if she wore clothing that fit her, and either wore no make-up, or a lot less you know? She's stacked on top, and in the back, but she's got this attitude that annoys the crap outta you. Total black Friday kinda thing. She's great at pointing out the worse part of any situation, so I'm trying to avoid her.

Anyways Tiffany introduces her kids, three girls, named Lindsey, Amber, and Diana. Their basically tiny versions of their mother, and cute as a button if I do say so. Not as cute as my kids, but they's close. The three girls are ages 5, 3 and four months, and their scared as all hell. I do my best to calm them, but I think I just scared them more. I'm a big guy, and people tell me I'm scary all the damn time, so I prolly made things worse. Tiffany had told me the night before how none of her kids dad's hung around beyond the knocking her up part, so the girls really haven't got any frame of reference for a dad anyway.

But Tiffany smiles as I try to calm the girls, and that's something I think. So far we haven't seen any of the walking dead, and I'm hoping this is a trend that continues for the day. But that's just wishful thinking.

We start heading back the way we'd gone, but Melissa and April want to go after their kids to. I can't argue with them, since I did just drag us to Tiffany's to get her's. Besides they say, they only live a few blocks away. Well that few blocks was more like a mile or two, but hey, still no zombie's so I'm not that worried. In fact by this time the oldest of Tiffany's girls is holding my hand and giggling as I tell her about my oldest daughter. Funny, I hadn't realized Tiffany was so much younger then me, seems she's not even twenty one yet. Apparently she got knocked up the first time at like fourteen or fifteen.

Anyway, as we're making our way, we see a store, and I'm thinking now's a great time to get some smokes, and something to eat. I figure the kids could use some candy and the store doors just hanging open. Telling them all to wait here, me and Stevie enter the building. There's nothing living or unliving inside, and although it was a bit tense, we quickly gathered up the items we wanted. Seeing us move around unhindered the adults took turns coming in grabbing their own wants. I was surprised to find Tiffany grabbing a carton of Newport's, and she winked at me as she stuffed it into the green bag she had liberated from the clinic. She stuffed a few extra's in as well, along with some lose packs, and lighters. She grabbed some more snacks for the kids, then kissed me on her way back out of the building, whispering thank you in my ear. Yeah it turned me on.

Anyway, so now I'm feeling pretty damn good right? After getting a few more bottles of water, I exit the building with Stevie, and we join the others. It isn't long and I'm enjoying a smoke, so my day at this point is all good right? Well too good.

We rounded the corner, and that's when the first shots zings past us. I grab Tiffany and the kids and pull them back around the corner of the building. It's only then, with lead flying past us that I realize why there's no bodies on this street. Their all laying at the base of a barricade half way down the road beside the store. If the store would have had a back door open to the public I may have noticed the barricade, but it didn't and I was so intent on getting up inside Tiffany that I wasn't paying a bit of attention.

Thinking quickly, even with a gaggle full of screaming kids I yell around the corner that we're alive and to cease fire. They shout back that all citizens are to be in their homes, but they don't stop firing.

I growl in frustration and look at Stevie. Despite all the shooting, the guardsmen aren't that good, and they're panicked. Stevie had seen some combat in Iraqi running a 1o5 howitzer, so he isn't that panicked. I point across the road to a neighboring building and he nods. I take the pump gun from Tiffany's shaking hand and nod at Stevie who's crouched down like a sprinter. He's dropped the bags he was carrying and has his pumpgun in his hand. The two of us still are wearing the vests we took from the dead cops so we're not that worried. Assuming the bastards can keep their guns up and hit us in the chest. I nod and jump out, blasting with my pumpgun. I managed to hit two of the bastards, as Stevie ran across the street to the opposite side.

Apparently they never noticed him running past me, cause I jumped back behind cover just as the squad turned to fire at me. They peppered the wall with bullets, but the brick and concrete stopped them easily. While I was out there shooting, I got a good look at their barricade. Pretty well designed thing, concrete dividers set up in front of a pair of humvees. Since they're guard the humvees ain't got the .50 cal machine guns they would have had they been Regular army or marine. But I had noticed one of the guys I blasted was carrying a M-21 sniper rifle. The old M-14 service rifle of the Korean war had been turned into a sniper rifle for the regular army, and served them for years, but recently the M-21 had been replaced by the much more accurate M-24 sniper system. Guard and reserve units, following standard U.S. Army doctrine were being outfitted with the older obsolete rifle as their dedicated squad marksman.

Taking him down by accident had been a stroke of luck, I admit. A marksman wasn't the same as a sniper, but they served the same role. The difference lay not in the type of mission, but the training. Snipers received a lot more training with their weapons. The marksmen of the squad were those who had scored the highest in BRM in basic. Still he could of fragged our whole day. Sniper or not, a marksman was still the best shot in his unit, and he'd often peg you without you ever noticing it.

As they continued to shoot at the wall I was behind, I nodded to Stevie, who popped out from the opposite side and started pegging them. It wasn't long before they had redirected their fire at him, allowing me to jump back out and take a few more down. We went like this, baiting them back and forth until there was only one acne faced private left.

The kid was scared, and he screamed his surrender. Shaking my head I charged up the street, and leaped over the barrier they had made. Landing by the kid I pointed the business end of my pumpgun in his face and told him to drop his weapon.

Needless to say, after he got done pissing himself, he did as ordered. I grabbed him and slammed him up against the wall, taking a Zip Tie out of my pocket and cuffing him good. By then Stevie was beside me, along with the rest of our little band. They took up the fallen troopers weapons without much urging. By now everyone was so worked up on adrenaline that they were not as scared. Stevie handed me the M-21, along with the LBE and rucksack of the marksman. Quickly checking it, I put on the LBE over my Tac vest. LBE, is short for Load Bearing Equipment, basically a set of suspenders and a utility belt with pouches and two canteens on it. Both serve the same function for the most part, but the gaurdsman's LBE had eight 20 round magazines of 7.62mm rounds for the M-21. The others checked the humvees and discovered four boxes of 5.56mm ammo for the M-16's, and a box for the M-21. Along with it were MRE's for ten for about two days. I told everyone to load up in the humvees, and turned back to the trooper who was blubbering at this point. I turned him around to face me, and when he didn't stop crying I slapped him. Yeah, I'm a prick, you can say it.

I told the kid to quite his whining and open his eyes. To my surprise he did as ordered. I introduced myself with my old USMC rank, Gunnery Sargent Baxter. That did a lot to calm him I think. People tend to respect us Gunny's prolly due to THE Gunny that we all know and love on TV.

Kid told me his name was Private Malone, after laughing for a few minutes and asking him if he'd heard the song with the same name, which he answered angerly that he had, I offered him a spot with us. Kid wasn't stupid, he may have been scared, but stupid he wasn't. He agreed, and I cut him loose. Even gave him his gun back. There was a few minutes where I expected him to try and blast us, but he hasn't yet. Told the kid to get into one of the humvees, and then making sure that Tiffany and the kids were in it as well, got in myself.

Kid sat in the back seat, and Tiffany took shotgun. I tried handing her back the pumpgun she'd gotten used to but she shook it off and held up the M-16 she had looted. Seems Stevie and the Doc had showed the civies the basic's of M-16 operation, cause she seemed to handle it easily. It was lighter then the pump gun, and had a lot less recoil to. Plus it featured a three round burst, and a thirty round magazine, so I understood her desire to have it over the five round, mule kicking 12 gauge. As I started the Humvee she leaned over and kissed me again, this time she even added some tongue to it, and I happily returned her kiss.

Stevie had taken the other humvee, and he had April and Melissa with him. So I let him pull out first, after he got turned around I did likewise, and we sped off towards our next goal. Funny, we had only a few blocks left before reaching their house. Stevie pulled up in front of a duplex style house, and then he and the others got out. We did likewise and I told the kids to stay in the humvee. It was armored some, so it offered the kids a lot more protection then standing on the street did.

We had barely gotten out though when the front door opened and a pair of kids came running out of the house. The two ran right up to April and Melissa, and it didn't take much brains to figure out that these were the kids we were here to get. Their mothers were understandably excited. After spending the night not knowing if their kids were alive, they were relieved.

The kids, a pair of girls named Shannon 12, and Elizibeth 10, told us that the house was empty, except for them. April and Melissa told them to get some cloths together, along with a few personal items, then told us they were going to do likewise. It was another tense twenty minutes as the women and girls got their belongings.

It was then that I decided to ask the others if they had anyone they wanted to check on. To my surprise they didn't. Doc said he'd never married, and Private Malone said his family was already dead, I didn't ask how he knew. BJ said her family sucked the life out of her and she could careless if they were all zombie's now. Tiffany already had her family she said. John was the last to speak and he seemed to be thinking hard, turns out his family was all in Chicago, and he knew we didn't want to go there.

We spent the rest of the time on the street waiting, keeping a look out for anything undead that might be on the way to munch on us. Again our luck held, and nothing so much as peeped at us. Soon Melissa and April came out of their house with their kids in tow. They threw their bags in the back and looked at us. Me and Stevie decided to tell them our plan, not that it's much of one. We told them we were headed for Phoenix, and they were welcome to join us. Or they could travel with us as far as they wanted, but that we had family there, and we weren't going to stop anywhere but home.

I figured Tiffany's feelings for me would change after discovering I was married, but they didn't. Not that I had hid the fact, I am after all wearing a wedding ring, so it doesn't take much brains to figure out I'm married. Instead she moved closer to me, and smiled bravely, She'd always wanted to move somewhere with more sun she said happily. I guess with the whole zombie apocalypse thing any guy that's even partially stable is a catch for most women.

The others agreed with her, seems our little band felt safer with us then taking their chances on their own. Plus I think Stevie's tapping both April and Melissa, cause the two of them are up his ass. Seems the two of them haven't really enjoyed the single life, so they'll take what they can get.

With everyone in agreement about our destination, it was time to head out I thought, so I loaded everyone up. We made for a gas station down the road a ways, since the humvees were on about half a tank. At Eight miles to the gallon, these things aren't the most fuel efficient vehicles every built, but man can they knock shit outta the way.

When we got to the station, I could tell our clear run was at an end, a whole horde was standing around outside, moaning and screaming. Seems they had trapped themselves a pair of cashiers inside, and wanted a quick bite. I plowed through a mess of the things with the Humvee. There's something satisfying in hearing a zombies head pop under a set of steel belted tires that does wonders for your day. Once I got clear enough to jump out, I did so, and started popping the freaking things in the head with my newly acquired M-21. Let me tell you, it didn't take me long to realize why the army had kept using this old gun. It's a little different than the marine version we used in the Corps, but not that much.

Tiffany jumped out her side, and had the M-16 going, and after a few misses, she got the handle of the weapon and was popping zombies like they were zits. Apparently Malone has a thing for BJ, cause he hopped out and took some down with us, trying to impress her I guess. Don't know if it worked, emo girls just ain't right in the head, and what should impress a girl often doesn't.

Stevie meanwhile had plowed his humvee through a bunch of the freaking things to, and it wasn't long before he and his were out shooting. Armed with rapid firing assault rifles, it didn't take much time to clear the parking lot. We pulled the humvees into place at the pumps and waved for the cashiers to turn them on. The two girls, excited at their sudden rescue did so, and then ran out to us. Unfortunately we missed a meatbag, and it got to the brunette and took a bite out of her neck. Blood spurted and we knew it wasn't long. Soon as the blood stopped squirting out her neck the thing got off her, I took it in the head, and then put one in the brunettes corpse. Being bitten doesn't turn you, but being killed does. That much we know at least.

Her friend was a little redhead who screamed in terror at what had just happened. Can't say I blame her, seeing a friend turned into a lunchable, then wormfood has that effect on Yeah. Red's still screaming, which is bad cause Zombie's are attracted to noise. Tiffany runs over to her and clamps a hand over Red's mouth, telling her to shush and doing a better job of calming her then I would have.

Me and Stevie start pumping gas, and we send Malone in to find a couple of gas cans. We figure it's better to have a few extra gallons, just in case. It takes awhile for us to fill the tanks in the humvees. By the time we do, Malone's got four five gallon gas can's, and tells us he's gonna go get the other two on the shelf. He waves BJ over and she follows along side him. I notice someone gave the emo girl a gun. I figure that's prolly not the best decision we've ever made, but I figure I'll solve it later, cause I could hear moaning coming from down the street. I stick the gas spout into a can and turn to see a wave of the damn things coming down the street.

Me and Stevie start taking shots at the oncoming horde, before we switch out cans. Tiffany has Red calmed to the point that she can function without screaming, and the two of them run over to us. Tiffany takes up her rifle, and takes a couple of shots, dropping a couple of meatbags. I grin at her in pride, the gal's really getting good at this by now. Tiffany winks back at me, then takes another bead.

By then Malone and BJ are back, he's got two more five gallon cans, and BJ's carrying four of the two gallon ones. Me and Stevie move so they can start filling the cans, and we make a more serious effort to whack these meatbags coming towards us. Luckily they're slow as all hell, so we got time.

No the problem is the damn things are moaning and screeching, and attracting others. It's weird in away. When the horde's are coming down on you, it ain't so bad at first, but then more of them show up. And those attract more, and soon you got a whole block of them swarming you. We're doing our best to take them down quick, true gun fire attracts the bastards just as much as screaming, or that damn moan of theirs but, believe me, it's worth it to kill as many as you can. Makes escaping easier.

Malone and BJ finish with the cans, and their asking me where to put them. I tell them to divide the things evenly between the humvees and they move quick to do so. I gotta tell you, Emo girls always complaining about life, and shit in general, but when faced with the alternative of dieing, that little chick can haul ass.

The two of them get the cans loaded, and I yell for everyone else to load up. We ain't sitting around here any longer. I jump back into the Humvee, making sure that Tiffany's in and buckled up before I take off. Seeing that she is, I look to make sure Stevie's all ready. He gives me the thumbs up and I nod, gunning the gas and splattering some of the meatbags on the bumper of the humvee.

We get down the street, and the damn things are coming outta houses, or jumping outta cars and running, or stumbling towards us. It's amazing how quick the street seems to fill with the damn meatbags. I run down a few, but it don't take a genius to see, soon their gonna block us to the point that we can't just run them over. I bust a bitch, and start back the way we came from. I watch my mirror as Stevie does likewise and soon we're speeding down the road.

Now this is where it gets tricky, cause the roads out there are clogged with cars, trucks and other vehicles. Hell today alone I've seen two helicopters crashed into the street. Luckily humvees are more sturdy then your average SUV, but we still damaged them something fierce. Even with the armor they all carry now, we still dented the fenders.

We cut down side streets, hoping to get out of the city, which I'd like to point out, we aren't that deep into, but Detroit's a big place, and theirs a shitload of people in it. Most of those people are zombie's by this point, so we aren't looking at good odds.

We managed however to get out of most of the heavily populated area's. That's not to say that we're safe at the time, far from it, we're still spotting undead everywhere we look, their just not as close, and we feel we can take our time some, and pick a better, safer route.

Before long we hit another of the gangbanger's territory. Unfortunately for the banger's they ain't got a wall to block us, and we've got a shitload of Zombie's on our tail. So I gunned it, and blasted through the pitiful excuse for a roadblock they had put up, and grease a couple of bangers to stupid to get out of the way of a speeding humvee.

By the time I hit the second roadblock, with Stevie on my tail, the Zombie's had flooded into the bangers turf. Part of me felt bad for the people in that neighborhood. But then that part of you that desire's to survive at all costs popped up and squished that feeling like the bangers just did under the tires. I might lose some sleep over it, but I'm doubting it. Yeah, that's cold your saying, but you obviously ain't looked out your window if that's the way you feel.

We get clear of the banger's turf, and shoot through to a side street, I slammed into a couple of trash cans, crushing a few more zombie's as we try to get clear. We get through after awhile, finally popping out on a street that looks fairly clear. Not seeing any better course ahead, I take off down the thing.

Going was fine for awhile, then we began to see car's on the horizon, and some of them are burning. I slowed down some, not wanting to slam into the things, and we notice there are some people in them.

This is our first encounter with a automobile graveyard as their being called. These are places filled with cars, most of them are even drivable, save they're blocked in by other cars. Seems at some point people came to the same conclusion as us. The best chance of survival was to get the hell out of the city with all the walking dead. Problem is people are panicked and they aren't thinking clearly. Road rage leads to accidents at the best of times, but when your running for your life, it leads to big time accidents. With no one out to pick up the pieces, and clear the roads of those accidents, those roads got clogged fast. I'm sure you've run into a accident during rush hour and sat waiting in your car to move ten feet. Well imagine that, except it's a hundred times worse, because when you know no one's coming to help you, you gotta make do on your own.

So people tried driving around it, only this caused more crashes, as idiots slammed into other drivers. Before long, the whole damn highway's stopped dead, and people are leaving their car's to try and walk out of the city. Any other time this might have worked, but you see, there's one element still missing from the equation that created these places. Zombie's. See the meatbags weren't just standing there as people raced away from them. No, like wolves the damn things just kept trudging on, until they caught up. Once the Zombie's got into the mix all those pedestrians became a walking smorgasbord. Soon people were trampling each other in their panic. And the problem just snowballed after that.

So here are all these cars, trucks, and tractor trailers just sitting right? And you can see bodies laying around all over the place, on car's, near cars, in the ditch. That's creepy just in case your wondering. As we're sitting there, trying to find away through, the first of the damn meatbags spots us. It starts that damn moan, and soon enough others are flying out of the wood work. As far as I see, there isn't away through. I put the humvee in reverse, hoping that Stevie's paying attention. Luckily he is, and we backed the hell out of there quick as shit.

We start back the way we had come, looking for a way around the mess, but we're not finding anything. Seems most of the side-roads are just as cluttered out here the closer you get to the outskirts of the city. I figure we aren't getting through like this, so I start looking for a place to stop and rest, and think.

I spot a Michigan D.O.T depot, and head for it, the place has a sturdy fence around it, and the gates are still locked. Seems this shit happened so face that the highway department didn't get a chance to get out on the roads. Not that I figure it woulda done a lot of good. Pulling up to the gate, I jump outta the humvee and run over to it. The gates chained shut and locked, so I pull out the pump gun and blast the lock off. I quickly pulled the chain off, and push the gate open. Tiffany has jumped into the driver's seat, and she pulls the humvee through after I get it open. Stevie pulls in behind her, and I close the gate again. The gate has one of those little flip down locks on it, you know like every gate made in the U.S. Right? But it isn't gonna hold the gate closed with a bunch meatbags pushing on it. Luckily the damn thing only open's inwards, else it would be pointless to even try and reinforce it.

Looking around I spot a F-350 sitting beside the gate. It's got a snowplow on the front and I figure the thing's gotta weigh in at several tons. I run over to the thing, it's old, late 70's early 80's right? I hop in, but there aren't any key's in it. Not that they're to important, I can start it without them. I pull out my Multi-tool, and pry the ignition out of the column, a little more prying and I've got the collar off it to.

That makes starting the thing a jiff, I inserted the end of my Multi-tool in the hole where the ignition was, and turned. The dashboard comes alive, and I notice this big boy's a diesel. Giving it a minute to let the glow plugs warm, I turn it over. The trucks old, but apparently she's been cared for, cause she started up without any problems. I pull the thing in front of the gate, doing my best to gently put it against the thing. I gotta say, it isn't the typical flimsy as all hell kind. This ones a heavy duty, construction/military grade gate and fence. Things got electrified razor wire going around the top, not sure if that will kill a zombie, but it'll sure fry them good.

The gate secured I hopped outta Big Betsy, and run over to the humvees. As far as we can see, the place is empty, but that doesn't mean much, I mean it's a big freaking place. There's two big ass garage's, several barns, a handful of sheds, and a big ass office building.

We make for the garage's first, checking them over to see if there's any of the freaking things in there. Luck's with us, the place is clear, but we spot several big plow trucks. Along with them, are tools, parts, and wielding equipment. Not a bad find given our current needs.

We move on to the barns, but like the garage's their empty, we find some tractors, and shit, but nothing that needs our focus at this point. A quick search through the sheds around the place reveal more tools, fertilizer, asphalt, barrels of tar and oil, and other stuff. I admit we weren't cataloging shit, but we made certain there isn't anything moving inside.

We hear barking and we turn in time to spot a pack of dogs running towards us. Guess they're the guard dogs for the place. Funny thing is the mutts aren't that fierce. As they run up to us, barking like mad and growling, Stevie puts a few rounds in the air. Let me tell you, that shut them up real quick. The dogs start whimpering, and cowering, most dog's hate gunshots. A few of the meaner one's keep barking. But hey, they're good dog's. All of us do our best to calm them, which is actually easier then it sounds. Seems the poor mutts are as scared as us.

I get this big ole bulldog barking at me, he's snarling and growling, and acting all fierce. Now it may not seem it, but I love dog's. But ain't good to have a dog trying to eat your face off, or at least that's what dad always said. So I carefully move over to the big fella, and he goes for my knee. I get outta the way, and catch the big fella by the collar, good ole spiky one to. Grabbing his heavy ass I leaned down and bit his ear. Funny huh? Not really, soon as I chomp down on his ear, big fella whimpers and the fights outta him. I drop him and point at my side, telling him to heel.

Big bastard moves over to my side and stands. At this point I'm pleasantly surprised, big guy's been trained. I tell him to sit, and he plops down happily. Panting, and holding that tongue out in that beautiful bulldog smile. Funny thing is, the big guy must be the alpha of the pack, cause the other dogs do likewise. By biting his ear I established dominance over the big guy, and dogs, being dogs, just joined the pack and followed suit.

At this point we're pretty happy, despite the horror around us, people and canine's bring out the best in each other, and our species relay on one another. I mean Dogs are man's best friend, and have been for god knows how long. It's funny, but both humans, and dogs feel better around each other.

Well seeing all these dogs gets the kids excited, you know how kids love pooches. And I'll be damned if the dogs weren't as excited as the kids about playing together. The kids get out and the dog's are wagging tails, or stubs of them, just as happy as can be. Before long the complex is filled with the sounds of children's laughter, and happy dog barks, and woofs.

With the kids playing, we leave Doc, Red, BJ and Malone with them, and the rest of us go to search the office building. It isn't long before we figure out we got ourselves a pretty sweet set-up here. Place has got a bunch of foldout cots, blankets and pillows. Along with a kitchen, some shower's and a big empty room to put the cots out in.

It's also got a bunch small rooms used by most of the administration staff, along with a big conference room. One small room up front has a bunch of little TV's in it, and we notice these are hooked to camera's around the place. Let me tell you, that makes keeping tabs on this place a lot easier.

It isn't hard to understand why we decided to spend the night here. Showers, food, a warm place to sleep, in the post apocalypse world, this Is as good as it gets. Besides we need to fix the vehicles, and get as much supplies as possible before we head out again. Besides we need something to push through all the cars stuck on the road. I'm thinking either Betsy, or a plow truck would be a good choice.

We pulled the Humvees into the main garage, place is huge and there's plenty of room. Then we locked ourselves into the office. Place is damn near a fortress, and we figure we can hold out here for a few days, maybe even get a handle on whats going on in the outside world.

John's uploading all his footage onto the net, seems some hackers, programmers and networking guys have survived and their doing all they can to establish a information site about all this shit. We've seen footage from nearly everyplace you can think of. Both here in the states and abroad. They're calling this site, Survivors Net. They got a map of the world up that you can check the conditions in your local area, kinda like a variant of those Google earth maps you used to look up.

We knew the Zombies controlled most of the urban area's there's just to many of them not to. But the most optimistic figures we're hearing now say that less then 20% of humanity is left alive. That ain't a good number, for the mathematically challenged, the current world population is believed to be just under 600 million, and falling. There's a little counter on the site that keeps counting down.

There's also a counter for the worlds Zombie population, and it's just over 5 billion so far, and rising. As you can guess, as we get weaker, they get stronger. They also are adding a feature to allow you to upload you Zombie kill total. They have a special board, kinda like a scoreboard, that tallies points and tells you who the baddest ass zombie killing machine is. Funny, I wasn't keeping track of how many I've killed, but John has been. Apparently he's already uploaded us onto the boards, I'm ranked 455th in the world, in case your wondering. Hell I know I was. According to john, I've killed two hundred of the damn things so far.

Survivor Net has a shitload of cool features, and pages. There's a lost love ones page, that lets you put up pictures and messages for loved ones. Their subdivided by country, and providence/ state, so it's pretty easy to put your message in the right boards.

Funny thing is, so many people are missing, the boards are clogged real fast. Seems everyone who can use the internet still is finding this site, and getting on. Not surprising since several big named companies are helping the site by giving them server space.

In case your wondering, I checked the Arizona boards, looking for myself or my family. No luck so far, and I haven't got a digital picture of them. But I put up a message for them anyway, just in case. If Heidi's alive, she'll get on, and hopefully see her name and leave me a message. Stevie's ex-wife was on it, looking for him. She wants a rescue, figures we can swing by Chicago to get her. She's managed to live, but my nieces didn't. Stevie's still pretty busted up over it, left Harmony a long ass message screaming at her about letting the kids die. And hoping to every god he's ever heard of that she ends up as a big mac for a bunch of zombie's. You gotta admit that's justified.

I'm still trying to get a grip on my nieces deaths to, may not seem it, but family's a big deal to us. Mom and dad drove that point home to us from an early age. Course gramps and gram did to, along with our aunts and uncles. I put up messages for the rest of the family, and even found a cousin in Topeka. She and her husband have barricaded themselves in their house, with their two kids. Told her we'd stop by on our way through, take them back to Arizona with us. Just hope she lives long enough for us to get there.

Besides message boards for locating people, and footage, blogs, and reports from eye witnesses Survivor Nets got some real reporters, and since it's become the defacto site for all things apocalyptical, even government officials are using it. Again both here and abroad. Seems the World wide web is doing it's best to keep the global community together.

The Site's also reporting about so called safe zones, places that survivor's have cleared of undead, and are gathering. Some are actual communities, others, are like our little complex here, temporary camps while the people inside get ready to migrate on to safer territory. We've added ours to the list, Michigan has a few of them, not the gangbanger's hoods, these are places were everyone's welcome, so long as they pull their weight and help out the community. I guess in away the gangbangers are doing the same thing. There's even three or four here in Detroit. One is close by, a temporary camp like ours, they're hold up inside a Mcdonalds, and they're gonna met us in the morning. Assuming they can get through the crowd of undead outside their sanctuary, and make it through the one outside ours.

Amongst the News topics today is everyone's favorite subject, what and how the Zombie's came to be. A group of researchers at the CDC safe zone inside Atlanta, are claiming they've found a virus that's to blame for it. Unfortunately other researchers are arguing that they're wrong. So we still don't know what's doing this.

The other favorite topics are the Zombies themselves. Some intellectual people have even gone on to identify four distinct types of them. They've given these things long complicated sounding names, but someone else came along and gave them easier to say, catchy names.

The first type, the most common are the slow moving frakkers. They're calling these bastards Slouchers, cause that's how they move.

The second type, the next most common, are the fast moving ones. They're calling these Runners. Real imaginative aren't they?

The third type is really just a subtype of the first. Zombies that are missing their lower half and crawling along. They're calling these things Crawlers. Yeah, you can see the thought that went into these names huh?

The fourth type is a freaking nightmare come true. Zombies as a whole are pretty stupid, animalistic things, but the fourth type ain't. Seems these bastards are smart, worse they can get the other zombie's to follow directions. They're calling this things Thinkers. How freaking scary is a zombie that can think? We haven't encountered any yet that I'm aware of, if we did we killed it before they got to play general of the undead.

The news doesn't get much better either. Seems Russia, in an attempt to save Moscoe, went a little overboard. They nuked a couple of city's considered too infected. St. Petersburg, Vladivostok, and some other one I can't even begin to pronounce are now a radiation spewing crater. Luckily for us, the rest of the worlds too busy to fire back, so we don't have a nuclear winter to contend with.

But it has effected the weather some, all that dust and debris in the atmosphere is floating around up there. Luckily for the rest of the world, most of that irradiated stuff fell back down on mother Russia, but enough of it went across the border with Mongolia and China that their not going to have a good day if you catch my meaning.

After checking in on some of the stuff at Survivors Net, we checked out our new fortress pretty good. I got a shower so I don't smell like a Yak anymore. There's even a set of washer and dryers here, so my blood stained, and gore encrusted cloths are being washed. I'm sitting here in a cot beside Tiffany in just my boxer's, and she keeps checking out all my Tats. Yeah I got a few, my stomach's covered in a good ole Marine globe and anchor tat, which I'm still pretty damn proud of.

Tiffany's got on this set of sexy little lacy things that barely covers her top, or bottom. Yeah, I like it. Tiffany's been asking me all kinds of questions about my life before the whole Armageddon thing. She say's she wishes she woulda met me back during Real Life. I laughed, told her she wouldn't have been interested in me, or me her, I'm married in real life. Real Life, that's the term we're all using for the old world, cause this new one's, like something out of a game or movie, and none of us can believe in it still.

Tiffany laughed at me then, told me I wouldn't be the first married man she had dated or jumped in bed with. But she say's I'm gonna be the last, she's tired of the whole wham bam thank you ma'am shit. She wants to settle down, start a real family, you know, mom, dad and 3.5 children, that kinda thing.

I laughed, I don't know if my wife and kids are alive or not. I told her I'd never cheated on my wife, and I haven't ever. I know, your thinking I prolly banged every prostitute from here to Bangkok right? But nah, I was good. Funny as it sounds the Corps got gamers in it, and I naturally found them and spent my shore leave gaming. Never did the bar scene, or the clubs much, I mean I went once or twice, and Yeah, I did some flirting with the local girls, but that's about it. Never took one home, or let her take me home, and no I didn't do them in the bathroom either.

I tell her that I can't give her what she wants until I find out the fate of my family. She gets misty eyed, and for a moment I think I fragged her up emotionally you know. But then she says something that kinda makes me think for a minute. There she is, tears in her eyes, and she asks me if I can't pretend she and her's are mine.

It's funny, cause it hits me, that's exactly what I've been doing. Yeah, I wanna bang her, but there's been hundreds of chicks in my life that I could have had, but I never did cause I'm a married guy you know? What makes Tiffany different? Believe me she's not the hottest gal whose wanted to ride the gunny if you get my drift. So why is it that I'm so sweet for her? So I'm sitting there, and I'm thinking over things, both Real Life, and now right? And that's when it clicks, as long as I have Tiffany, and the girls, I can ignore that Heidi and the kids are prolly dead. Or as she just put it, I can pretend like everything's normal, and this fragged up delusion we call the world now is just a dream. You might not believe me, but I hope right now Heidi has that to. Someone she can pretend is me, someone to look over her and protect her and the kids.

During all this thinking Tiffany's just looking at me, tears in her eyes, and waiting for my answer. I turned to her and kissed her, then pulled her down beside me and pulled the blankets over us. I told her goodnight, and kissed her nose, like I've done to Heidi every night since we met. Funny thing is, Tiffany giggles just like Heidi does when I do it.

I laid there until she fell asleep, no I didn't bang her, not yet. Not sure if I'm going to or not yet. Yeah, she woulda gave me some if I asked, but I'm not sure if I'm ready for that level of pretending yet. I got up, took a piss, and tucked the girls in. Then I checked on Maria, and her little gaggle of rug rats. Little ones are sleeping peaceful, their belly's full, and safe. I stood their for a little while, leaning against the wall and smoking. Yeah, it's dark in here, but I can see well enough.

In case your wondering, we're all sleeping in the same room, privacy is a luxury of real life we can't afford right now, believe me, seeing my little brothers white ass as he's getting in Melissa isn't a sight I wanna see, but I'll deal. One of the little ones whimpers in her sleep, and I move over to her, tucking her back into bed, and rubbing her back like I do to my youngest girl at home. She smiles in her sleep, and lay's her hand on my foot. If you've never seen the absolute innocence on the face of a sleeping child before, you can't understand the emotions that ran through me at the sight of her little hand on my big foot. If you have kids, or did in real life you'll know that emotion I'm talking about. That sudden epiphany that tells you that this little one depends on you for everything, and the responsibility that comes with it. You'll also know that silent vow you make to God, Allah, or Zeus, whatever you call the divine, to protect that little one with your life and very soul if needed.

I leaned down and kissed her little cheek, ignoring the tears that spring to my eyes. I gently take her hand from my foot, and angrily shake the tears from my eyes. Marines don't cry I tell myself. Then I sit back down and write this by candle light. I keep looking at Tiffany's sleeping face, and I can see that same child like innocence in it. I make that same vow to God to protect her that I make for the kids.

The monsters outside better be afraid, there's a meaner monster in this building. Me.


	3. May 6th, 2010, Detroit, Alex Fixed

2100 Hours, May 6th, 2010

Survivor Total: 13 Adults, 10 Children.

Today has been OK, all things considered. We added a few extra's to our little band. A married couple and the brides sister. Of course they got fragged up in the process, but hey, who's counting right?

So what happened? Well the group from McDonald's got here, damn near drove a delivery truck through our fence to do it, but they stopped just shy of actually taking a section of it out.

Problem was when they got in the truck, the damn meatbags were on them. Followed them here, not to mention they had three of the damn things in the back before they reached us. Those three in back killed the people that were in there to. Zombies in any enclosed space isn't a very good thing under any scenario. So when they got here, they didn't have a truckload full of survivor's, but a truck full of hungry meatbags. There were four of them in the cab of the truck, two guys and two gals, and the second guy got out, and after blasting a way through the zombies, he opened the back.

Needless to say the surprise that jumped out of the back ate him before we could even scream. This place wasn't ever made for combat, just to keep people out and protect the equipment of the highway department, so we haven't got any high places to shoot from. So we're at ground level, trying to clear the gate, and make a path for the three people still alive. Course the bride's sisters screaming her head off, her husbands just been turned and now he's wanting to take a few bite's outta his wife.

Lucky for her, I got a bead on her former husband real quick, put a round through the side of his head, dropping him. Not that she thinks she's lucky though, woman screamed that we'd just killed her husband, and then cusses us real good. I don't think she's realized the seriousness of out situation here yet, she seems to be thinking that her loving husband just wants to hug her, instead of turning her into a big mac. Yeah, people are crazy I know.

We managed to clear a path large enough for them to get to the gate, and we got Tiffany in Betsy, and she pulls it back as they run through the gate, pulling the screaming woman. Tiffany slams the brakes, grinds the gears and then Betsy jumps forward in time to slam the gate shut, and crush some meatbags in the process.

But a few got in with the three people we're trying to save. A couple of quick shots later and we got a few corpses in our compound. We pop a few more meatbags outside the fence, hoping to discourage them from trying to push the thing down. Doesn't really do much but drop the ones we shoot. The others soon have the gaps they left filled, and we're seeing this is a pointless battle.

So we stop shooting. Yeah, I know that sounds strange, but we're trying to conserve ammo. Besides they haven't got in yet. They might later, but we'll deal with that when the time comes. The fence is really sturdy, it was made to keep people from coming in here and taking the stuff the Highway department stores here. This is Detroit you know, got one of the highest crime rate's in the country, so fences are made a lot better here.

Our new arrivals introduce themselves. A pair of teenagers who just got hitched a few days ago. She's still wearing her wedding dress, and him his tux. The sister's got on this ugly ass bridesmaids dress, and she's crying her head off. Red, whose name I still haven't heard yet, knows them, if only in passing. The bride says her names Victoria, but she goes by Vicky, and the groom's name is Gabe. The weeping sister's name is Francis, or Fran, Vicky told us. They're covered in blood and gore, and each is carrying a weapon of some kind. Gabe say's he's a trucker, and Vicky's a Secretary, not sure what Fran does, and since she hasn't said more then three words the whole day, we're not likely to find out until later. Vicky hasn't said either, not really sure why, but none of us are all that concerned. Once we told the newbies the plan, they jumped on board.

We've spent the day fixing the humvees, and adding some additional features to the two big boy's. Mainly in the form of steel plates over all the glass windows. Doing that to all the vehicles actually. We've found a set of trailers, that we're adding a top to. These we plan on hitching to the humvees as additional storage. We decided on a plow truck to serve as our ram. We've emptied the back of the thing, cause they're built like a dump truck with a huge box on back. We're adding some additional plates to the back to keep out any of the meatbags from getting in there and hitching a ride. We're also setting it up as a sort of kennel for the dogs. We're gonna make the back of the plow truck completely enclosed.

We're taking Betsy, along with a cargo Van. Red's gonna drive Betsy, and Maria says she can drive, so we're giving her and John the Cargo Van. We're adding some seats to the van, along with some additional armor. Maria wants to take the kids in it. It's a big ole Chevy van, got a 350 CI small block in it. Chevy makes some damn good motor's, especially the 350.

At first we were a bit worried about letting a 14 year old girl drive the kids around, but John can't drive he says. He's a big city kid, and is used to public transport. Maria meanwhile use to run with a street gang, and she's been driving since she was 12. Seems the gang use to have her drive the car during the drive-by's. It could be bullshit, but I tell you this much, we let her do a little demonstration with the thing in the parking lot, and she showed us some shit I didn't think possible in such a big van. She can drift that big bastard around the garages easy as pie, plus she can take a pop shot or two out the driver or passenger window while she's doing it. Needless to say, that was all the proof we needed that she can drive. She's promised us not to drive as crazy with the kids inside it.

Like I said we found some trailers, four in fact, and we're gonna load these up. Two of them are the fuel trailers. They got a big 250 gallon steel tank on them. They also have a lot of storage boxes for tools, and gear. We're gonna hook these to Betsy and the Van. The other two are just truck beds with a tongue on the front. These are wired and we're hooking them to the Humvees. We're putting some tops on them, so we don't have to worry as much about meatbags catching a ride with us. This place has lots of steel sheeting and pipe, and we're doing our best to wield it together to make decent roofs.

Me and Tiffany have a plan to rig one of the trailers up with a generator, and then put the fridge in it from the shop. The generators got enough juice to power the fridge. Might be nice to have some fresh food on our trip. We're putting tie downs in the trailer as we build it, to keep the fridge and generator from sliding around in the thing. We'll have to figure out some way to secure the stuff inside the fridge, but that's a minor problem.

We're gonna take as much of the gas, and diesel as we can, along with the cots, blankets, food, and some water. Hopefully we can find some more ammo here shortly. We still have rounds, but more is always better. Besides the cots, there isn't much camping gear here, so we're going to have to find some. We're taking some of the overalls, and other work cloths that fit us to, right now anything's better then nothing.

Survivor Net's reporting some strange shit today, seems there's these blue glowing lines appearing all over the world. They only appear at night, so it's sometime before we see one. As far as we can tell, the things aren't dangerous, just kinda gives you a spooky vibe when you're on one. These things are being called Ley Line's by some occult freaks. They claim there basically rivers of life energy. They're pretty big, there's one running along the highway this place sits beside. And I gotta admit, they look like river's and streams.

Course the funniest thing is, these Ley lines, are straight out of Rifts. Yeah that's one of those games I play. Was playing it at the Convention on the day all this shit broke out. Palladium must have had a crystal ball, or been a bunch of occultist, because as far as we can tell they got these things down perfectly. Needless to say, Me and Stevie are trying to remember everything Palladium Books ever wrote about Ley Lines. As long as Rifts don't start opening on us, and releasing untold horrors from a thousand worlds we should be OK. Although I'd give my left nut to be my Juicer I was playing a few days ago, that dude could so punch a zombie in the head and kill the fragger! He's a Mega-juicer see and he's got Supernatural strength so he inflicts Mega Damage from bear hand strikes......... Err.....My bad, back to reality.

The occult people, or witches as most are calling themselves, are claiming that the mass deaths, of most of humanity are flowing into these rivers of energy, like regular rivers during a rain. Anyways, as more life energy flows into them, they get bigger. Which is scary in its own way, I mean what happens when these rivers of energy overflow? I've seen rivers during flood season, and that's never fun, so what happens when a river of life energy overflows? Ain't a witch alive that's got an answer for that one, I know, we've all asked them.

Those same freaks are saying that Zombie's aren't really interested in eating us. Supposedly their biting and such is just the most instinctive means of attack. I've seen Zombie's grab people and smash them, but I just figured that was the easiest way to keep them from trying to run away while the zombie snacks on them.

Anyway, these freaks are saying it's the life force, the same energy that gives all living things life, that the undead are really after. At the moment you die, this energy doubles, and it's this energy that the zombie's really hunger for. They claim that the zombie's, with enough of this energy can completely heal themselves. Ain't really sure about that shit, but it seems a bit scary.

I gotta admit though they seem to be telling the truth. The Ley Line appeared just after sunset, and since then the zombie's have left the fence and are just standing there. There breathing in the blueish energy and it's creepy watching them, looks like souls their sucking down.

But here's the really funny part, the Ley Line's pulsating, like its beating or something. If Zombie's really do feed on this stuff, I kinda wonder what happens if they eat all of it? I mean from what the witches are saying, it seems that while the rivers flooding now, it will eventually go down, just like any other river. I guess they go back to eating us.

I know it's kinda confusing, we're worried about these rivers overflowing, and here I am wondering what happens if the zombie's eat up all that energy instead of it flooding the world. Who knows, maybe it's just a question of what frag's us first? The Zombies, or mother nature right?

So I'm sitting in the parking lot writing this entry tonight, the Ley line's kinda creepy, yet it's pretty at the same time,it lets out a shit load of light at night, which is the only time you can really see them. During the day, they just kinda fade into the background, and you can't see them all that good. But at night, they glow like a freaking bonfire!

I'm also watching our undead neighbor's and I gotta say, the Witches are right. Been watching this big one, and he look's fresh, no wounds, or nothing. Course he's still covered in blood, and shit, but he doesn't look dead anymore.

I'm betting if I walked out there, they'd never notice me. Might have to try that if I ever get suicidal that is. Oh well.

Anyways, on to other discovery's today. Words come out of Chicago, and that word is the freaking city is a bloodbath. Seems some bikers rolled into town during this whole shit storm, and made it even more of a shit storm. Yeah, their killing zombie's left and freaking right, and saving folks from what we hear, but they also torched half the city. That seems to be a point of confusion however, cause half the people say they only meant to torch a hospital filled with undead. Then the other half say's no it was deliberately done to drive the undead out, seems the undead are a bit pyrophobic, and fire scares the shit outta them. Anyways this second group says the bikers knew that there were hundreds of people left in the buildings, but they didn't care, they just wanted to whack the damn zombies so bad, that they sacrificed those people to do it.

The leader of these bikers, Brad Ashley is the dude's name, seems to be the kind of single minded asshole that's willing to sacrifice people to kill a few zombie's. Dude seems to have a boner for the undead, and he ain't afraid to stick it in they faces either. The Newbie's said we should try to met up with him, and his gang, but I wasn't big on that plan.

Don't go thinking it's cause I'm worried about losing control of our little band, far from it. I just don't think that the dude's the savior many are making him out to be. I mean to many people Hitler was a hero, or rather he was at the time of his life. No, I'm not comparing the biker guy to Hitler on any real level, just an example.

Maybe he is the Savior of America, but I haven't seen anything to make me want to trust him with my family's life. So after some debate, it was decided we'd just keep an ear on Ashley and his gang, the Reapers. But we weren't going to go looking for his ass.

Words also come outta Denver, apparently things didn't go to pot as bad as they did in the Midwest, cause the Mayor of Denver is claiming his city is free of undead. Not really sure if I believe that, but the Mayor announced the formation of the Denver City-State today. He said the City would take as many survivor's as it could.

Funny thing is, half a dozen other cities are making similar claims. Since the good ole' U.S. Government hasn't made any effort to lead the nation, other people are stepping forward to do so. As far as we know, President Obama's locked himself away into some bunker with half of congress and a bunch of people. I know, it's possible that someone infected got into that bunker and turned the whole place into a freaking can of beanie weenie's. But still, lack of leadership is always a recipe for disaster. So people are looking to local authorities for direction.

But that's neither here nor there, thing is, Denver, Winnipeg, Atlanta, and Part of Manhattan are claiming to be free of undead, and their telling survivor's to flock to them. Each city is claiming independence, or rather I should say complete rule over the territory they claim. I don't know, maybe I'm paranoid, but I'm not heading to one of these places, seems like it's just asking for trouble.

Like I said, we've spent the day working, trying to get our vehicles up to snuff for the roads of the apocalypse. Everyone pitched in, even the kids. Maria, our little momma in training is doing a better job then I would have at her age. Hell she's doing a better job of being a parent then I am even now. I'm proud of her, she's proving to be exceptional. She's setting up her van, and packing it pretty good. She's mainly trying to keep things in it that the kids are gonna enjoy. It's funny, since Johns teamed up with her, she's bossing him around like she's got him whipped. Part of me worry's that John might be tempted to tap her, but then she's proving she's adult enough to make that decision, so I'm kinda torn. Part of me thinks I should just kick the crap out of John to keep him from trying it, but another part says Maria can make up her own mind as to what she wants to do.

Everyone is pitching in though truthfully. BJ might groan and moan about every damn thing under the sun, but she's a worker. I was amazed when she crawled under the humvee and helped me wield on the skid plate under the engine. Even more amazing, she's wearing cloths that actually fit her! Yeah, hell did indeed freeze over, she's taken the make-up off as well, and like I thought, she's a pretty girl under all that face paint. Malone and her are pretty sweet on one another, so that might have something to do with it. Malone should feel lucky, BJ's totally out of his league if you know what I mean.

Anyways BJ's also been spending her time with the dogs, seems she's a real animal lover. She's working on training them some, and while they aren't showing much signs of taking to it, she's keeping at it. Except for the Bulldog, he's mine and I named him Bolivar Shagnasty. I love that dog, he doesn't much care for BJ, other then to hump her, and he stay's beside me most of the time.

Bj's sorted through the mutts, and besides Bolivar, she's got a pair of German Shepard's, a pair of those Aussie herding dogs, and a pair of mixed breed hounds. The Dogs don't like the undead, they can sense them BJ says. She's doing her best to train her hounds to sniff them out. Only time will tell if she's successful or not. She says she's gonna train the shepherds up to be good guard dogs. Not sure what her plan for the herding dogs are. The dogs are about the only thing that she can't find something wrong with, even when they're being stupid as all hell, she never says a cross word to them. Strange coming from her.

Tiffany's been at my side the whole day, trying to help me with the work. I gotta say, I'm proud of her as well. She's a good woman, a hard worker, and she looks cute as all hell in a set of overalls with her hair done up and grease on her face. She reminds me of Heidi a lot, kinda scary in a way. Course then I might just be losing my mind, and that's why I'm seeing things in her that I seen in my wife.

Tiffany insisted on making dinner tonight, she's not a good cook, and I didn't have the heart to tell her that I normally do all the cooking in the house. The only time Heidi cooked was when I was overseas. Funny, Heidi isn't that good at cooking either. But I ate everything she put on my plate, and even managed to ask for seconds. Of course I'm the only one who did, but hey, it made her happy. Thank the Corps, and the Navy for years of taste bud killing ship food. Cause compared to that stuff, Tiffany's a world class cook.

Tiffany spent a lot of the day asking me more about myself. Seems she thinks it's cute that I've been married for so long. I showed her the pictures I keep in my wallet of the kids, and she insisted on seeing the one I have of Heidi. She noticed that she and Heidi are pretty much the same build. Tiffany's got more on top then Heidi, but they're close. Tiffany thought this was both cute, and kinda spooky. They don't look much like each other, just the same body type, which I think made it less creepy for Tiffany.

I turned the tables on her, and asked her some about her real life. She laughed a little nervously before answering. Seems she was worried I'd think of her as a slut or something.

Anyways, she never finished school, she got pregnant in 9th grade, and after having her oldest found it hard to go back. The guy who knocked her up didn't want anything to do with her after she was pregnant. She said her mom wasn't all that supportive either, apparently mom got pregnant with Tiffany when she was real young too. Mom was something of a drinker, and Tiffany and her five sisters, to which she's the oldest, were expected to get knocked up before they were 18 mom said. But that doesn't mean that Mom didn't do everything in her power to make Tiffany feel like shit about getting pregnant. Tiffany said her mom called her every variation of the word slut she could think of throughout her pregnancy.

Anyways Tiffany tried to get the guy who knocked her up involved with his daughter, but he just wasn't having any of it. She was young and had delusions that the two of them could love each other, get married and start a family, after all he had told her he loved her. Guy did everything he could to crush that optimism, so did his family. Seems the guy who did it was a lot better off then she and her mom was. She told me that his mom and dad sat her down and explained that they wanted her to go away and stop trying to ruin their son's life. After brow beating her for a few hours about being a dirty slut, they gave her a check for ten grand and made her sign a piece of paper that their lawyer had written up. Tiffany had been emancipated after she got pregnant, so it was legal. Thing of it though, she was just a scared kid, and the guys parents used that to get her to go away.

She got her G.E.D and even tried some community college. She said she had wanted to go to become a nurse, but she never got past the first semester. She met a guy in college, and the cycle repeated itself. She met a guy, thought she was in love, gave it up to him, and after discovering she was pregnant again found him running away as fast as possible. Oh! But he tapped her one last time before he split though. Let me tell you, at this point I was like, you sure know how to pick'em you know?

Well anyways, she got a job, nothing career like, mostly fast-food and such. She had a good job in a factory making seats for ford for awhile, but then the factory closed and moved to Mexico. At the time she had two kids at home, and needed something to keep the money coming in. So she got her last job, a waitress in a greasy spoon. It didn't pay that well, but it was close to the industrial park. The workers came in for meals, and a young woman like her with her sized top made good tips, so long as she wore the right kind of shirt and flirted a bit.

Well one of those guys, a regular decided to get some of her. Tiffany fell for his attempts, and after a few months, she was pregnant again. At this time, she was 19, and he was in his late twenties. She told him she was pregnant, thinking that adult men would be different then the boy's who had knocked her up.

That's when she found out her boyfriend was married, and had no intentions of leaving his wife for the mistress. Worse, he figured since she had been so easy to get into bed that it probably wasn't his kid. He figured she'd been banging anyone who offered her a 20 dollar bill. Yeah, that kinda pissed me off to, I hope that guy's a zombie now. Hell I'll blast him, even if he's not.

Anyway dude does offer to pay for Tiffany to get an abortion, but that's about it. He pulled out a wade of cash, dropped it on the table. Then he told her to go frag herself, and to stay out of his life. Needless to say, Tiffany's heartbroken, but she doesn't get the abortion. She did however take the cash, and she tried to do right by her girls. Saving any amount of money she can. Not that it was much, but she had gotten some saved. Then someone broke into her apartment while she was at work, and stole all the money she saved. Ain't humanity beautiful?

After she told me this, she kinda went quiet, and was chewing her lip while I cut some metal to put over the humvees windows. It didn't take a genius to figure out she's worried I'd do the same thing, not to mention she figure's my respect for her had dropped you know? After all, in her own words she's easy.

I went over to her and took her into my arms, kissing the bridge of her nose. I told her I wouldn't leave her. She gave me this startled look, then went on a long explanation of why she's always hopping into bed with guys. She wants a family, she wants a guy to treat her right, and to love her. She's always figured the best way to show a guy this is to pretty much do everything in her power to make him happy. She also figures that it's best to show the guy she's a team player, there to support and help him, whatever he's doing. I gotta admit it explains a lot, since we've met she's been at my side, helping me do anything and everything. From working on the vehicles, to fighting the undead.

In my mind that makes her a great woman, I've always had this silly idea that a man ain't worth shit without a good woman at his side. I tell her this, and how proud I am of all her work, as well as everything she's been doing. I told her it was great to have her with me, and that things would suck a whole lot more without her and the girls.

Well that had the effect of making her cry, and that made me feel like an ass you know? But she says that's the nicest thing anyone's every said to her. She told me she's not upset, but just so happy. She hugs me, and kisses me. I know, I've been married for years, you'd think I'd be use to women crying like this, but no, it still makes me worry.

Doc's been cataloging all our medical supplies for most of the day. Seems he's not mechanically inclined in anyway whatsoever. He's a good doctor, but he breaks his toaster on a regular basis. He tried helping out for awhile, but after knocking two of the armor plates off a fender, and shorting out a heater, I sent him elsewhere. Still gotta get fix those tomorrow.

Doc however has got a head for numbers, and keeping track of stuff. So he's been recording all the supplies. Like I said he did the medical supplies today, and him and his two nurses April and Melissa, are going through the other supplies we've earmarked for taking. Mostly food, tools and equipment such as generators.

April and Melissa have been following Stevie around when they can get away from Doc's sight. Yeah, just about everyone has someone they're sweet for. Stevie's a single guy, so he hasn't got my emotional hang-ups of a family. So he's banging the two of them any chance he gets. I can't do that yet, for some reason the idea of cheating on Heidi is still there in my head.

But Stevie doesn't have that, his ex wife already did him in like a mind fragging ninja. That means Stevie's looking to make some sense of these world we've suddenly found ourselves in. He's been drinking a lot to. I understand he's hurt over the death of his girls, I can understand why he'd be driven to drinking. He's hiding it pretty good though. He's doing this in the typical Stevie way, of being a prick. He's younger then Melissa or April, yet his being an ass has already made them fall for him hard. Not sure why that is, I always thought it was younger girls who fell for that shit. Figured when a woman got older she'd figured that trick out already, apparently I was wrong, go figure.

Red spends a lot of time by herself, I've tried talking to her a little bit, but it doesn't seem to have improved her spirits any. Found her hanging with Stevie earlier, and maybe he can help her out some to stay sane. She was giggling a lot while he talked to her, she even flashed him. She's a bit younger then Stevie, she's about Tiffany's age, so the whole asshole attitude turns her on. I figure we're going to have some drama when and if he starts tapping Red. Melissa and April are a little older then me, and you know how older women get jealous of younger ones. So that's gonna make life interesting when and if it happens.

Johns still recording everything, and loading it into his laptop. Besides following Maria around like a lost puppy, he does 'interviews' as he calls it with us. Not really sure why, prolly for the same reason that I'm keeping this. He's uploaded some of it onto Survivor Net, watched the video of Tiffany earlier, she looked cute, mainly cause she was so embarrassed during it.

The only time he puts the camera down is when he's helping Maria with something. The gaggle of kids she has with her seem to like him, and he's doing his best to help her take care of them. That's another reason I haven't stepped in between him and her's budding friendship, I know Maria wants to find a dad for the twins in her belly, and we're kinda short on guy's her age. Plus what 14 year old guy is gonna help her take care of kids?

Anyway, we have loads more work to do tomorrow, and Tiffany was so exhausted that she went to bed early. I'm gonna go join her I think, sleep sounds good. So here's hoping there's a tomorrow.


	4. May 7th, 2010, Detroit Alex

2100 Hours, May 7th, 2010.

Survivor Total: 12 Adults, 10 Children.

Fran hung herself last night. We found her hanging in the showers this morning. Luckily she didn't turn, so we cut her down, and buried her behind the barn, in a small patch of earth.

Vicky was understandably upset at the death of her sister. We've had more then enough drama today, so I won't go into the details of it here.

Chicago's still burning, worse the zombie's are smart enough to get the hell outta dodge, their fleeing the burning city right behind the few survivor's managing to get out of town.

That was the last bit of news we got, Detroit experienced total electrical failure today, guess the power station blew or something. We have a generator here that's running, and keeping the lights on, but a massive section of the city's down. We can't get online anymore, mainly because with the power out the server's are down, and no one can log into the internet. Well without a direct satellite up-link anyway.

With the power out over most of the city, we can see the glow of dozens of Ley Lines. We can also make out half a dozen Nexus points. None near us, but we can see them when we climb up on the barn. Did that before the rain started.

There just like Palladium always described, which is funny, who would have thought that a RPG could educate you? I mean those things are suppose to be complete works of fiction. Kinda depressing in a way though. I Figure it's only a matter of time before we find ourselves living in Rifts Earth. Unfortunately for us, we don't have juicer's, glitterboy's, or cyberknights. Hell we don't even have the shitty ass Chipwell suits from Rifts, which let me tell you I'd be a plenty happy with.

Scarier thought just occurred to me. In Rifts, the ruins of Detroit are called the Demon haunted ruins. That's because with so many rifts open in the city, demons just poured out and now live in the ruins. I wonder how long before rifts start to open and fill the ruins with those same demons? Since Palladium's pretty much nailed everything else about magic, me and Stevie are betting they're going to be proven correct about the demons to. I wonder what happens when the Stiff's meet some demons? According to the stats in the books, Demons have a whole lot more P.P.E, or life energy then the average human. I bet more then a few meatbag's try to eat them to. Won't that be funny? Our world won't be infested with demons, only because the dead eat them to! Ironic in a way.

We're hoping tomorrow to discover something more. Figure if we can find a server to connect to we can get back on Survivor Net. It's funny, but that damn website has sort of become the center for everything in life anymore. Our society is so dependent on information now that we can't survive without it.

I'm not outside tonight, it's raining, and the damn zombie's are singing. Well maybe not singing, more like a droning, moaning thing then an actual song, but that's about the only term I have for it. Seems that the Ley Lines loose the ability to feed the undead during the day, I'm not really sure why, but the Zombies leave them right about sunrise, and move back to the fence. Then as soon as the sun dips below the horizon we see the line flare, and they move away from the fence to stand on the line,sucking in the energy. They started this damn singing noise about an hour ago. It's haunting, and depressing, just what you'd expect from a mob of walking corpses who have been eating people.

We finished the modifications and repairs today. We're planning on leaving tomorrow night. We figure if the line distracts them so damn much, we might as well use that to our advantage. Hopefully we can drive right past the bastards . Gabe's gonna drive the plow truck, and hopefully its got enough power to push us a path clear.

We've added ram/plows to the humvees as well, and Betsy has a plow on her already. Doc's found an old ambulance that we got running again. Him and the Nurses are currently packing it with what little medical gear we have, as well as our medical supplies.

Me and Tiffany got it running again, when the Doc found it, it was just sitting in the weeds rusting. Took me a couple of hours to get the thing up and going, and thankfully Tiffany was there to help me, she's got small hands that fit into the little places in the engine compartment better then my big ones.

It took some work, but there's four other old trucks and vans sitting around back here. All of them are the old Ford industrial vehicles, with the 560 Ci Ford big-blocks in them. We took a set of heads off a truck that was near by, and a manifold intake off it as well. Vehicle cannibalization at it's best. The ambulance purr's like a tiger now, and she's got more then a little get up and go.

Course she's been sitting there rusting now for at least a decade or more. So we had to do a lot of body work as well. There isn't any bond o around here, so we had to actually cut and wield on pieces of sheet metal to fix the holes, and shore up the thing. It looks like Frankenstein, with all the rivets, and wielding lines on it, but it's got it where it matters. Those old Ford 560's will run till they melt down, and even then, they might just surprise you and keep going. We also had to flush the fuel, and brake lines, years of sitting didn't leave them in the best condition. She leaks a bit here and there, those rubber seals shrink after sitting for as long as it did. They should expand out some with fluids running through it again, but they're probably cracked in more then a few places. I'm hoping she's just not to leaky you know?

Tiffany seems to be enjoying our relationship so far, and to be honest so am I. It keeps me from thinking about whats happened. She reminds me a lot of Heidi, but she's her own person, not a carbon copy of her if that makes sense. I think if they ever meet they'll like each other, except they're both my wife......err....never mind, they'll hate each other.

I made a ring for Tiffany today, since she's suppose to be my pretend wife, I figured she needed a ring. I cut a piece of stainless steel pipe that fit around her finger nice. Then I buffed, and polished it out, and filed it so that it wasn't sharp, but rounded on the edges. Thing sparkles like a diamond, and she cried when I put it on her finger. That made me feel kinda bad at first, and I started to apologize for giving her a bad ring. But she shakes her head, and hugs me, telling me that she's not upset, she's just happy. She say's its the prettiest ring she's ever seen and she loves it.

Now I know women cry when they're happy, but I still find it weird. And I worried about having hurt her feelings all day, but she's laying here beside me, with it still on her hand, and refusing to ever take it off. She say's its better then any gold and diamond ring, because I made it for her with my own hands. Not sure about that, but I'll go with it.

Me and Tiffany got the trailer finished today as well. We've packed the food and stuff away inside it. Pretty nice little set up, should make life easier on us. We're hoping to be able to store some fresh meat in the fridge as we go. There's livestock, and wild animals still out there, even if Zombie's are killing them to.

We gathered every gas can we could find and filled them up with fuel. These we divided up between the vehicles. We've got some jugs filled with water as well so we should be OK on that for a little while. We go through a lot of water in a day. Luckily we got the water jugs filled before the city power went out, else we wouldn't have gotten anything, the water-pumps are down all across the city and ain't anyone getting water anymore.

Needless to say you don't wanna spend much time in the restrooms tonight, we don't wanna waste the water we have stored to flush them, so we're living with the smell. But it's nasty. I pity anyone else if they come along and find this place, we've picked it over pretty good, and made a mess, ain't we great?

Doc's been checking our wounds, and they seem to be healing good. Tiffany's thigh is still pretty bad, but she's making do without complaint. Doc figures he can take the stitches out of it in another week or so. He did stress that we have to have adequate food and water for us to keep healing. Plus with the kids, and Maria pregnant we gotta be double sure to have enough food and water. Poor girl drinks water like a fish, and when she can get it she downs 7up like its crack.

Me and Tiffany climbed on top of the southern most barn today, to get a look around. We found some binoculars in the locker room, and we used those to take a look at our surroundings. We spotted a pawnshop west of us that we're gonna hit tomorrow night. We figure it's got guns and ammo, and other stuff we can use, so we better get it. We want to avoid going into towns as much as possible on our trip, so since we're here we might as well get what we can.

Tiffany spotted a mini-mall not far from the pawn shop, and she wants to get some more cloths. I figure we might as well, and besides she keeps hinting she wants to get some special outfits for herself, my eyes only if you know what I mean. I gotta admit the idea of her in something skimpy is freaking exciting, so that's probably got something to do with me decision. Also there's the fact that me and most of the other people only have one set of cloths, and at this point my boxers are starting to get a little funky, a change of pair is in order I think.

Plus the Mini-Mall's got an outdoor sport-shop in it. We figure they'll have some camping gear, and that's in high demand with us planning on spending some time in the great outdoors. From what we've heard zombies aren't as plentiful out in the rural areas, and damn near a none-factor out in the boonies. Guess that's cause there's not as many people for them to have spawned from. Zombies congregate where there's people, makes sense when you think they come from us, and we're their food supply. Plus the sports shop will have some other items that will prove useful, football and hockey pads will make pretty decent armor against the walking dead. Hockey is insanely popular up here, so we figure they got at-least one set in everyone's sizes, or close enough to work with. True Stevie and I are wearing combat armor that we snagged from the cops, but it'd be nice to get some for the rest of our band.

We've decided to travel at night from here on out. Two reasons for this, one is if there's a ley line nearby, the damn things just stand there, and ignore you. I shot a few of them tonight, just to see what they'd do. Well they ignored it, for all intents and purposes, it was as if nothing was happening. Doc says they're like sharks when they eat, they don't notice anything.

The second reason for traveling at night is simple. A Zombie's eyes glow red in the dark, making spotting them easier then in the daylight. We figure this will give us some advantage when it comes to moving around and keeping away from them.

We did have a strange conversation at dinner tonight. We took a head count, and found the number of men, to women is pretty damn low. Doc say's that's because more women are born then men. Plus since most guy's tried to defend their families, they died first.

We talked about what we planned to do once we reached my house in Arizona. I explained that we had mostly farm and cattle around us. So food isn't going to be to problematic to raise. Since the weather's a bit hotter out west, we can grow crops damn near year long. I've seen the farms around me putting down cotton, wheat and corn in October, and harvesting it in December. Only time the farms are without a crop is in January and February, which are the coldest months out there.

Well with everyone being from here in the midwest, they have certain expectations from movies and such of what the west is like. Most think of it as a scrubland, or desert with cactus and little to any rain. So they wondered just how we'd farm. Me and Stevie laughed at that, told them the same way they've done it for hundreds of years, irrigation. For those not from the southwest, here's a little heads up, it has one of the largest aquifers under it. Since the days of the old west, people have been drilling down into that aquifer, and setting up real simple waterpumps. In the old west these were all wind powered, hence all the windmills you see out that way.

Well that excited most of them, suddenly realizing we'd not only survive, but maybe even thrive. Except ain't none of us farmers. But we figure we'll learn as we go, sink or swim you know?

Well then the subject turned to what we do once we reach Arizona. From what we've been hearing, humanity isn't to numerous now a days. That brought us to April and Melissa's current sharing of Stevie, seems that's going to become a very common arrangement. Doc said that once we get to Arizona, and establish ourselves, he'd do his best to keep geneology charts. He figure's we're going to need to knock more then one woman up, since there's so few men anymore. He's hopeful that in a few generations, our group will have grown enough to return to the single man, single woman arrangement we all know today.

We decided that we'll build a military complex like area, where everyone lives. We figure there won't be room enough for us to build individual homes, so we'll have to build barrack style places. We'll have to surround the place with a wall or some kind. A few guard towers and other little additions will be added as well. We figure that we're gonna have a hard enough time housing everyone, so it'll be best to build a sort of cafeteria like place to feed everyone. We also figure that will make the collection, and storage of food easier in the long run. Since we'll be planning and preparing massive group sized meals. It also means we're gonna have a huge demand for food.

The barracks we're thinking will be sort of a military dorm style thing. Most likely we'll do a nice size living room, with three or four bedrooms off it, and maybe a bathroom or two. Since we're of the opinion that women are going to outnumber us men by at least two to one, we're figuring it'd be best to give the women the bedrooms, and have the man kinda float around between them. We figure that with the number of women in a household, added to the lack of any form of birth control will lead to a massive baby boom. Without TV, or other forms of entertainment, most folks are going to turn to everyone's favorite past time, sex. Well that and part of our goal is to re-build the species. So the extra bedrooms in each dorm will be handed over to the children.

Strangely enough the women didn't seem that upset with the idea of having to share their menfolk with another lady. In Tiffany's case she already knew I was married, so I guess that had already set her mind to accept this. But I think it also has to do with the fact that the women don't want to be alone anymore then anyone else. With the ratio of men to women out of whack the way it is, it's kinda the only way that everyone can have someone. I guess most women figure it's better to half a man then nothing at all you know?

But who knows, we may find that the males of our species survived better then we think. We may run across more then a few on our journey, and I'm hopeful we do. I figure it's going to be hard enough to repopulate the world. Doc says the more males we have, the better we can keep our genetic lines safe from inbreeding. He figure's we may end up having to make assignments for breeding groups of men and women. He's pointed out for example that me and Stevie's offsrping can't ever mate with each other. Whether our kids, or our great, great grand kids, our lines, since they originate the same, can't breed. He's given us some scenerio's of what will happen if we have several related people in our group, as each one eliminates another pairing for fear of inbreeding. His recommendation is to pair up siblings with one mate. Like a pair of sisters both married to the same dude. He figure's that way, you can keep the chains of eligiable pairs pretty strong.

Kinda creepy to think we might actually have to tell people who they have to marry, or breed with. I mean the choice of marriage is pretty much a basic freedom that we all took for granted I suppose. But since we're discussing long term survival of the species we may be forced to do just that. Just imagine what would happen if Tiffany had a sister? Not only could my descendents not breed with them, but they couldn't breed with any of Stevie's either. That means two genetic bases are pretty much out the window before we even begin.

Now imagine if we had ten men, and three of them are brothers, add in twenty women and say six of them are sisters, and you can see how the math shows us that we die out in only two, or three generations.

This shortage of men is going to become a problem I can tell already. Not that it takes a genius to figure that out or anything.

Guess I'm going to head to bed, Tiffany's wanting to turn the light out, and she's had a hard day and could use the sleep. Me to for that matter, we're gonna have a big day ahead of us.


	5. May, 9th, 2010, Detroit Alex

1000 hours May 9th, 2010.

Survivor Total: 19 Adults, 15 Children.

Well, might be wondering what happened to yesterday right? Well thing is, we didn't do much, just rested until sundown. Then once the line started glowing, and the meatbags moved away from the fence to do their nightly choir practice we left the MIDOT complex. Funny thing is I was right, when they're feeding like that at night, you can walk right up to them, and they don't pay you a lick of attention. Just don't touch them. They snap outta their feasting real quick. Luckily for me, I tested my theory on a straggler just standing in the middle of the road. Blasted it in the face with the revolver.

The Ley Line follows the road, as if it had been laid down on top of the asphalt. Lots of meatbags just stand out there to, and I lost count of how many we plowed over with the plow truck.

We found some more people to, as you can see from our raising tally of survivor's. Today we're staying inside a truck stop in southern Michigan. We got the vehicles stashed in the garage, and we're all here inside the store part. They got a KFC in here, so we're eating real good today. The place has a set of generators that run off natural gas, so we got power. It sits a bit off the highway, and until the sun rose, the place was clear of any zombie's. But now that the suns up they're all outside, beating on the shatterproof glass. Thank goodness none of'em have busted through.

So what all did we do over the last 36 hours? Well we went to the pawn shop, got some more guns and ammo, and everyone's carrying a pistol now. We also got some swords, and mace's from the place. Seems like every pawn shop in America now carries Katanas and bad ass medieval mace's. I still got my fire axe, but I picked up a big ole' thumping stick. Pretty nasty thing, solid steel, with a leather and foam grip. It's got nine blades around its head, and their freaking razor sharp now. It's got this six inch spike on the top of the head, and trust me, it splatters a zombie's nugget like a freaking watermelon.

Tiffany got herself a Katana, and she's been playing with the thing all night. She's strapped it across her back like some barbarian in a movie. Gotta say though, something about her in a tight ass shirt and jeans with that thing on her back is freaking hot. She picked up a pair of glock's and she's got those in holster's under her arms in a chest rig, but her tits are big enough that they push the holsters out some. She's like a plumper, larger chested, blonde version of Lora Croft from tomb raider. Yeah, I didn't think Lora Croft could get any larger in the top, but Tiffany has her beat hands down.

The pawn shop had some other goodies to, mainly ammo, and tons of it. We also found a bunch of equipment to repack brass, along with enough supplies of gunpowder, lead, brass casings and molds to keep ourselves armed till hell freezes over. We got about a dozen chainsaws, and half a dozen generators. The MIDOT complex had a few of these portable things, but now we got more, along with more tools. We also snagged some cameras, camcorders, and jewelry. Yeah, we got a little happy looting the place, for a time everyone forgot about the monsters outside. The place was near a line, and the zombies never bothered us.

I gave Tiffany a proper ring, along with an anklet with little diamond charms on it, and a necklace made of platinum with a big set of sapphires hanging from it. Her new ring's white gold, and got a big fat diamond on it.

But Tiffany's still wearing the ring I made her. She just slipped the second ring on her finger, above the other one. She says the one I made her is our wedding ring, the new one is her engagement ring. Yeah, she's a strange girl.

Anyway, we didn't find anyone in the pawn shop, not even a store clerk. We looted the place pretty good, then moved on, leaving a few guns and some boxes of shells for any survivor's on their way out, just in case anyone else finds the place. The pawn shop had a couple dozen laptops, and everyone's got one now. We're able to get online again to, so that's a plus.

Me and Stevie snagged a pair of guitars each, and a bunch of strings, pedals and a small amp. I grabbed me a Strat its cream color and white. Also grabbed an acoustic that's dark blue, not sure the maker on that one but it's got a good sound to it. Stevie grabbed him a Les Paul, and a dark stained acoustic. We play some from time to time, and figured everyone might get a kick outta hearing some music. We're not great mind you, mostly just a hobby, but we're OK. We also grabbed some tambourines, harmonica's and other little instruments. Figure if we can find a safe place to camp we can have a little fun, you gotta enjoy the little things in life.

We left the pawnshop and headed over to the mini-mall. It wasn't as close to the line as the pawnshop, but most of the meatbags had made it to the line before we got there. I got to test out my new mace on a few of the stragglers. Tiffany played ninja maiden on them with her katana. It was funny, she giggled as she was lopping heads off, can't tell you the stiffy that gave me.

Anyway the sport-shop had some camping gear, but not a lot. We got some tents now, along with a few camp stoves, chairs and other odds and ends like propane lanterns and cast iron cookware. We took some coolers also, thinking of using them as backups in case the fridge goes out.

Funny thing was the Sport shop didn't have any pads at all! I thought that was a bit weird but after looking around some we figured out that someone's already been here. We found some blood stains in the back, but didn't venture far into the store room. Who knows we may have found the pads, but everyone was pretty sure we'd find a load of Zombies. I hope you can understand our caution in not going into the dark ass store room to look.

After the sport shop we hit the clothing store. After making certain it was empty, we scavenged some cloths, and I got me a fresh pair of boxers on! Tiffany picked out some cloths for me, not sure I like them all that much, she's trying to dress me like a gangbanger! I tried telling her that wasn't my style, but you know women, they get an idea in their heads and you might as well give up trying to convince them otherwise. I tried explaining I was more of the t-shirt, blue jean, redneck kinda guy, but she just laughed and told me I'd look good in the ones she picked out. Oh well, I tried right?

But Tiffany did find some outfits to wear for me whenever I finely man up and bang her. She also grabbed some cloths for herself and the kids.

After we left town and got headed out after our little shopping trip we headed south on the highway. We found a Sheriff hiding in her car, on the side of the road, if not for the noise of the plow truck knocking cars aside, she'd still be there to. When she heard the truck she popped her head up, and saw our little convoy. She jumped out and ran up to the road, waving her arms about. She looked kinda rough, three days and nights in a car wreck on the side of the road will do that to you. We stopped and Doc was the first one to get to her. Kinda wish he'd have waited until the rest of us were out with our weapons you know? Just in case.

Anyway, Sheriff says her names Wanda, and after a quick inspection of her we load her and her stuff into the ambulance, and head down the road some more. So far she's the only person alive that we've found in the street. Wanda isn't what I'd call good looking by any stretch of the imagination. She's got a nice top and bottom, but she's pretty damn ugly. She's a brunette, kinda medium set. But she's got some experience with combat, or rather police style combat, so that's a freaking plus.

We found our next group of Survivor's in the truck stop, pair of cashiers, a family, and a pair KFC workers. Seems these folks have been hiding here since things went to shit. Needless to say, seeing us all pile out, armed to the teeth didn't reassure them much either. Plus Stevie popped a zombie with the Desert Eagle .5o cal AE he picked up at the pawn shop prolly didn't help. I swear he's compensating for something, dude's got the biggest guns he can find. Gotta wonder why that is?

Anyway, there's a family inside with the workers, mom, pop, and their gaggle of kids. Dad's brandishing a shotgun, and screaming at us to go somewhere else. Well, kids, in case you're not aware, threatening a band of heavily armed people when you've only got one gun, isn't smart.

Now don't get me wrong, I respect people with a backbone, but that's just about the stupidest thing you can do. If we're the kinda folks who would take this in a bad way, he's dead before he can kill more then one of us, so it's kinda moot you know?

All I could do was look at the guy like he's retarded, and shake my head. We're coming in, I tell him. Either he can just open the door and chill, or I can put one between his eyes, his choice. Either way me and mine are still coming inside. Funny thing is he started to raise the gun,which gets me twitchy, you see. I already have the M-21 shouldered, and before Dad blinks, I got the muzzle pointed at his face and am already seeing the pink mist that would be his brains soon as I fire.

Lucky for Dad, Moms, a lot smarter then him, she puts a hand on his shotguns barrel and looks me in the eye. She gives me this intense look for a moment, kinda like my own mother use to give me when I was fragging off you know? Without thinking I drop my aim down to the ground, and she nods at me. She says she'll open the door on a few conditions. Yeah, I know we could have just shot them and walked in without all this bullshit, but I go with it. I figure it'll put them all at ease, and that means I can rest easier you know?

So I tell her to name them. She ramble's off a quick list of conditions. Key to them is she wants us to promise we won't rape them.

Funny, I'd never thought of that shit, but I guess I can see why it's a concern of her's, except we got more women then men in our group. Oh well, I guess with that many guns pointed at you in anger, you don't stop to check skirts you know? I promise her we won't rape any of them.

Then she makes us promise we won't hurt them. I respond we won't so long as they keep their hands off whats ours. She reluctantly agrees to my statement.

All her conditions met she unlocks the door, and opens it. I step through followed by the others. Stevie's the last in and he nods to mom before she closes the door. Dad's still giving me a look that say's he'll blast me in a heartbeat, and I'm returning it to him.

But then I hear a sharp intake of breath from mom, and I turn to look. She's just noticed all the kids we have with us, and suddenly she's not so worried about us raping or hurting them. Even Dad seems to relax at the sight of all the kids standing around tired. The little ones have slept on the way here, but it's still been a rough night. When we looted the pawn shop, we left some guards outside with them, but they still woke up a couple of times. Damn meatbags singing woke them, and the kids didn't really sleep to well after that. Tiffany is looking for a place to lay the girls down for the day, and Mom quickly points her to a sectioned off area they've set up so the kids don't have to look at the zombie's beating on the glass.

Tiffany thanks her, and takes the girls over there, getting them situated as the other kids come in with Maria. Mom and Dad have five kids of their own, and two of them are young, so they got a TV and a DVD player set up. The kids are watching Sesame Street, and our kids smile happily and lay down to watch the show to.

After that, things went real smooth. Mainly cause the sun came up and all the damn Zombies came to beat on the glass for the day. Mom asks us when's the last time the kids had real food, and we tell them last night before we left. She asks where we're coming from and we tell her Detroit. A nice trip of over a hundred miles or so. But at the speeds we were going it took us damn near all night to make. Once you get out of the city, you can fly at highway speeds, but the problem is Zombies have a habit of popping out as your going, so doing 75 is kinda stupid. We averaged about 30 miles an hour or so.

Well Mom shakes her head, and then yells for the two KFC workers to start making some food for all of us. Fried chicken for breakfast, ain't nothing like it. Dad takes us over to a set of tables and tells us to make ourselves comfortable, the guys attitude by this points completely different, and he's even a bit friendly now.

Me and Stevie grab a four pack of Guinness, and sitting down I pop the top on my first real beer in damn near a week. God I love Guinness, the bastards that invented that shit are freaking geniuses as far as I'm concerned. Brilliant is the slogan, I'm sure you've seen the commercials.

Before long they're bringing out food, and after we get the kids fed, we dig in ourselves. Tiffany takes a Guinness and takes a swig. Despite the face she makes at first, she must have liked it, cause she drank three more with me. Tiffany's more fond of Corona, but she's getting use to my beer.

With the net being sketchy, a lot of folks are trying radio's. From simple hand styled, to C.B's and ham radios. We got some military style radio's in the humvees, and we've been getting some local information from a few people around the area. Even talked to a guy in Toronto for a few hours before his power went out. Anyway Survivor Net's setting up dedicated Radio Frequencies for survivor's to send and receive information. Seems a hacker tapped into the emergency broadcast system, and now radio signals can be transmitted fairly easily across country.

The people in the truck stop are anxious for any news they can get. TV was amongst the first things to go down. Well down isn't exactly the right words for it. A lot of local stations are still transmitting, except all you see now is an empty desk with a few zombie's moving past the camera. Most of the big stations are out too, so there's not much to see.

We give them the Intel we've collected so far, even show them Survivor Net, the place for information now-a-days. The truck stop still has Wifi, and internet service, how great is that? Anyways we bring them up to speed. I hate being the bearer of bad news, it's just not a good feeling you know? But Mom and Dad listen to everything we've learned and seen in the past week with more then a little curiosity. The workers do to. It isn't long before Mom and Dad announce their going with us when we leave tonight. Ditto for the workers.

I haven't heard Mom's real name yet, she really goes by Mom. Strange huh? She's a little older then me, mid to late thirties. She's a nice looking woman, got long jet black hair that's got a little gray in it, five kids will do that to you. She's not pudgy, not skinny either, she's more of that in between size you know? Medium seems the best way to describe her, both on top, and in general body type. She really makes you think of Real Life, cause she's this matronly, soccer mom type. She's in the PTA, on the church board, volunteers in her community, all that shit we used to say we wanted to do, but never did.

Dad meanwhile is a few years older then her, I'm guessing early to mid forties. Seems he's a preacher in some church in Iowa. I know, that kinda floored me to when I found out, I mean how many preacher's threaten you with shotguns? But I can understand his fears, I mean he's got a good looking wife, and a set of twin daughters that are just about sixteen, you'd worry about a bunch of guy's raping them to. Anyway, Dad as we call him, we haven't learned his real name, and he seems to like being called Dad by everyone, wants to check on his congregation if we're willing. He and his were trying to go on vacation in Toronto when this all happened, and they got stuck in southern Michigan. I'm not the most religious person, but I figure we can slip into small town Iowa without much problems. Besides I've started to notice how morale is slipping in the group. Tiffany and the girls are fine, but some of the others are seeming more then a little depressed you know?

Well the easiest way to improve morale is to establish goals that we can all strive for. That way there's a sense of accomplishment. Yeah, we have a goal already, to reach Arizona, but that's a long ways off, and it seems things keep conspiring to slow us down. I figure we tell everyone we're headed to this small town, to check for survivors, and maybe, everyone gets a little excited. I mean, we're doing something heroic then, not just surviving. Plus Dad tells us he knows away around the ruins of Chicago so that we don't have to try and tangle with all the mess that's going down there.

It worked pretty damn good to, after the decision to go check, everyone seems a little less tired, a little more upbeat. The worker's at the truck stop jump on board to, seems waiting here for the zombie's to get in isn't their cup of tea.

We're going to try and avoid all the big cities we can. We're looking over the road maps in here. Indiana and Illinois are pretty heavily populated, meaning there's a lot more zombie's. Dad say's there towns, just across the Illinios/Iowa border. Since we were heading to Kansas anyway, to get my cousin in Topeka, we figure we can just kinda sneak along the northern area of Chicago, and into Iowa. We gotta turn south around Chi-town, but still. Once we get passed the massive metropolis that's Chicago, which now is mostly a burned up ruin with so many meatbags, you couldn't even begin to count them, we should find our way a little easier.

The staff's mostly women, but there's a big guy who works in KFC. Our cashiers are both mid twenties, skinny and brunettes. One, Casey, is stacked way to big on top to be real, or so Tiffany claims. The other Susan, is kinda light on top. Tiffany hasn't made any private comments on her, so I guess she doesn't feel threatened by Susan. It's funny how women can still be jealous of other women during all this, but Tiffany is a bit. Not sure why though, I haven't said but like four words to them. Tiffany, like a lot of women when they feel threatened by another female likes to point out the little imperfections in them. Hence my comment about the fake boob's, Tiffany has been pointing it out to me, repeatedly.

Anyways, the KFC workers are a guy and girl, apparently sweet on each other. Guy's name is Kevin, he's a big guy, about my size, and in his early twenty's. Dude's pretty excited about getting the hell outta here, but he wants to take his car, a little Honda civic I think. He's pointed it out to each of us a couple of times. Nice looking car, but I wouldn't want to travel across country with it. The thing looks way to flimsy for my tastes. Oh well, his funeral right?

His sweetie's this little brunette, and I mean she's freaking tiny, girl stands only like 5' or so. Anyway, her names Frankie, and she's skinny, but she's stacked. Like him she's in her early twenty's. Seems she was going to school to be a nurse, but then this whole end of the world thing happened.

Mom and Dad's oldest three, there son and the twins sat around with us. Seems their son, names Greg, wants to be armed, can't say I blame him. Mom and Dad weren't opposed to it, but I could tell they weren't real big on the idea either. When the twins heard that Greg was going to be armed they wanted to be as well. Kinda funny in away.

Anyway, Greg's not the biggest guy, and he looks a lot like Dad, brown hair, medium build. He's a big time jock though, and he's always talking football. Kinda funny really. Kids 17, and he's itching to blast some zombies in the face. Understandable that is, I just hope the kid doesn't freeze up when the shit hits.

The twins are basically younger versions of Mom. Their names are Amy, and Lisa. Amy's the bookworm type, and the most like Mom. The two dress alike, and Amy's got her hair cut nearly the same as her, which means it's long. Amy's a bit shy, and when the twins are together, which is most of the time, she lets her sister do most of the talking.

Lisa on the other hand is the exact opposite of Mom, she's a jock like her older brother. Girls running around in a soccer jersey, and wearing matching shorts, so you'd think she was getting ready to go play a game. Lisa keeps her hair cut short, kinda in a boy's style, but she keeps it looking girlish, you know how some girls can pull of the short hair and still be feminine, well that's her. Lisa's not shy like Amy, and after my shower, Tiffany had to chase her away from me. Lisa seen some of my tats and was checking them out. It was all innocent, but still Tiffany got a little jealous that another girl was touching me. I tried telling Tiffany that Lisa didn't mean anything by it, buy she's convinced the girl wants to ride the gunny.

Tiffany really reminded me of Heidi during that. Heidi gets jealous of other women all the time to. Tell her the same thing I told Tiffany to, which is kinda funny. Life ain't gonna be good if Tiffany and Heidi meet I'm thinking. Oh well, to late for that now, so no regrets.

Greg wants to ride in Betsy with Red, funny the kid's been up her ass since we got here. She's pretty good looking, so I can see why,and apparently the gals working here in the store are annoyed with the kid following them around. Red seems to like the kid more then she does Stevie, cause she's been talking to him pretty much to the exclusion of anything else. Stevie says it's cause Red's trying to make him jealous, but not sure about that, seems to me she really likes the kid. But I'm going to let Stevie have his delusion's he needs them.

With internet, and the laptops we looted from the pawn shop, everyone's itching to get online and check out Survivor Net . Survivor Net's also working on establishing data havens in some of the bigger safe zones, Denver, Atlanta, and Winnipeg already are setting up a dedicated server system for the site. Plus they're linking the new city information sites to Survivor Net. Apparently a lot of the data's on the L.A. Net, and power's a bit spotty out there. So not a lot of new stuff's gone up today, they've mainly been transferring data to the new server's. Supposedly its going to be a redundant system, with all three storing the same info. Supposedly when something gets uploaded to the site, it gets recorded by all three servers.

But what new stuff have we found out? Well apparently Zombies come in more then four flavor's. Besides our original four varieties, we now have two new ones to think about.

The first is called the Mock Zombie, and I'm still not sure I believe in them. But the video makes any doubt kinda hard. Anyways these zombies think of themselves as alive. In the video, the damn thing even helps the people making the recording, it isn't until later, when the Ley Lines flare up at night that the group with it figures out it's a zombie. Cause like all the other undead, when the lines flare up and their near them, they just stop and gorge themselves. Anyway, the thing talks, laughs, pretty much everything we can do. It even hates other zombies with a passion. So far there's two video's up that feature Mock Zombies, and let me tell you, these things are even scarier then Thinker's. Mainly cause they break down the level of trust we survivor's have for each other. I mean you see someone laughing and talking, and you know their alive, but now, might not be so easy.

So far the only way to tell a Mock Zombie from a human is damn near a medical examination. They don't have a heartbeat, and they don't have any body heat, just like any other corpse. Their pale compared to a human, but as long as they feed regularly, like all zombie's they don't rot. Given enough life force, they can even regenerate wounds, just like the others.

We're still learning about this type. Seems some guy found his girlfriend hiding in a car. At first he's worried cause she's all chewed up you know? But she doesn't try eating him, and she's crying and asking him for help. Guys stupider then me, cause he picks her up along with her parts that are just barely hanging on, and carry's her back to his apartment. Anyway, his apartments on a line, and when night comes, he's got her in a cage, cause he knows she's a zombie. Well chick regenerates at night, and come morning, she's forgotten all about being turned. She hasn't chomped on him yet, maybe because she's getting regular meals at night. But it's from him, and her denial of being a member of the undead that we've learned what we have of the so called Mock Zombie.

Our next flavor is just as weird. They're calling these one's pattern zombie's. The only spotting of them have been at large factory's near Ley Lines. The things work a regular shift at the factory in question, then at night they go out and stand on the ley line, feeding. As long as you don't touch them, day or night, they go about their day. They even fix stuff! The longest video I seen showed a bunch of workers in a Russian munitions plant, making bullets. Some Russian survivor's pulled a big military cargo truck up to the loading dock, and a zombie with a clipboard comes out and hands it to the driver of the truck. The guy, thinking quick signs the paper, and hands it back to the zombie. The meatbag turns and waves at another zombie, then yells for it to bring out two pallets. Well I assume that's what it said, the people in the video translated for us English speaking folk. The funniest part was that after the dockworker yells, you can hear a forktruck start up, and soon you see a forklift with a pallet of bullets! Their boxed, and stacked and wrapped like they always are when they ship from the factory.

Anyway the Zombies load two pallets of bullets into this truck, then go back into the factory, like they would have if they were alive, and at work. The Survivor's jumped in their truck and moved outta there in a hurry, thanking their lucky star's and not looking back.

But the Russian video isn't alone, theirs one from somewhere in Missouri, and the zombie's there are making shoes! They make'em, box'em and stack'em on pallets and get the pallets ready to ship. Hell I seen one from Hong Kong and the Zombie's there are making freaking Toyota corolla's.

Now we have people theorizing that these zombies aren't all that dangerous, and assuming you can get to them, and you have a transport truck of some kind, the things will just hand over whatever it is that they're making. But how many factory's are near ley lines? Not many I'm reckoning. Wonder what will happen when they run outta parts. Will they keep working, even though their no longer actually doing anything? Or will they go berserk and start hunting people? Who knows, and we prolly got a few more day's until we find out.

So now we got two new types of zombies to think about, and most of us are wondering, how many more types will we discover before this is all over? Knowing are luck, Zombie's are going to be a baskin robins of flavor's.

In none Zombie news, we've got other things to worry about. Reports out of New Orleans are that there are some people who can control Zombie's. Not sure if I believe this or not either, but supposedly these people are calling themselves Death Priests. These Death Priests are offering people sanctuary so long as they do as the priests say. We've coined the term Death Cults for these things, although not much is known about them. Could be a bunch of bullshit, but then it could also be the truth. I mean we live in a world populated by the living dead, something science told us a few days ago was utterly impossible. Yet their isn't a person alive who can deny that the dead are indeed walking around out there.

The few occult people on the boards are telling us that with the ambient increase in earths level of magic, its not only possible, it's probable. The witches that have been putting up messages are saying their own magic has become spectacular since everyone started dieing. They're warning us all to keep an eye out for people who can sling the Mojo. Witches are pretty much our main source of mystical information now a days. A lot of them are telling us that they've been trying to tell us this stuff for years, but we 'norms' refused to listen. Apperantly witches are like Shamans, or wise women, and they think it's their responsibility to try and educate use non-magic folk about the wonders of the world. Not sure if I believe all that, but I'm willing to listen. Funny, it only took the end of the world for people of all faiths to start taking each other and their views seriously and respectful.

Not that the Witches are the sole educators of the occult right now, we have Voodoo practitioners, Native American Shamans, Jewish Kabbalist, and Christian Thaumaturges telling us all kinds of stuff. Mostly that the power of Necromancy is on the rise. Not that we needed much occult knowledge to know that, I mean the undead now reign over the planet. Anyway, they're all telling us to expect some spectacular magic to start flying as the level of magical energy rises.

The gamer in me gets all giddy at the idea of people flinging fireballs, and lightning bolts. But it also is scared shitless. Palladium has been right so far in the way magic, and magic energy works so far, and part of me worries that soon Palladium style necromancer's will start popping up to make life even worse for us 'norms'.

One small group of witches, a pair of women have asked us to scoop them up on our way through the Chicago area. They're in some truck stop, like us tonight. Dad say's it's right along the highway, and we can reach them without having to go far off the highway. They had left a open message for a rescue on the Illinois message borders. We've been checking them, along with the other neighboring states, looking for other people that might have a safe place to crash at, or need rescuing. These pair of ladies are skilled in the mojo, but not in survival, at least not surviving this kind of crap. Not that many of us are really, but it helps to have some combat experience under your belt. Anyway, these pair of witches say they'll help us with their mojo, if we can protect them from the zombie's. They say they're from the Salem area and apperantly were in Chi-town for some witchcraft thing. Not really sure what their talking about, but regardless, we figure it be nice to have some mojo on our side. We don't know much about them, except they're alone, and scared, guess thats enough now a days you know?

I thought Dad or Mom was going to have a fit about us picking up a pair of witches, I mean we Christians have kinda persecuted them over the centuries. But Dad apparently isn't to concerned, he says there's so few of us living left alive, that we should focus on working together to survive as a species.

I checked the message boards to, looking to see if Heidi's gotten on. But so far, there's no sign of her. I'm starting to worry, We haven't heard a word about Phoenix yet, and me and Stevie are starting to wonder why. Could be the power's out across the city. Could be cause there's no one to report. I'm hoping it's just the power.

A few years back, when the government was giving away those big tax breaks for people that installed solar panels and windmills onto their house or property, I jumped on board. Got a big home improvement loan from the bank, and installed both. So I'm pretty sure my house still has power. But if Phoenix is in the dark, then that explains why she hasn't gotten online. Cause then she can't get online you know?

The other reason is still to hard to think about. Where ever you are love, I hope you and the kids are safe. I can't tell you how badly I need you to be.


	6. May,10th,2010,Illinois, Alex

900 Hours, May 10th, 2010.

Survivor Total: 28 Adults, 15 children.

We made it out of Michigan and went through Indiana last night, we're in a state park today, in a set of cabins out here in the wilderness. We're still a little ways out from Chicago, so we haven't got the witches yet. There's a few zombie's out here, but they're so rare that they're not as dangerous as they are in the city. They mainly run in small packs, and those packs are fairly solitary. We did find a new kind of Zombie, and John's up at the Ranger station with one of the rangers we found out here, loading the Intel onto Survivor Net.

You might find a pack of six or seven of them, but that's kinda rare. Rednecks and country folk armed with shotguns are generally better prepared for survival then city folk, so no surprise there right?

The Ley Line along the highway has branched out, little tributary lines everywhere you look at night. Unlike the big ones, these smaller ones are anywhere from 5', to 25' in width. But they criss-cross like a spider's web.

Mostly our night consisted of driving, like I said. We did stop a few times for gas, we've loaded down the vehicles so much, that they're getting less then idea mileage now. We haven't had to dip into our supply of fuel yet, and as long as we can keep finding gas stations, we won't have to.

We filled up at the truck stop last night before heading out. We looted some more cigarettes, bottled water, food, batteries, and other useful items. Mom and dad are driving a big ass Ford Econoline conversion van, with a U-haul trailer behind it. One of those eight by fourteen foot trailers. Seems they had planned on stopping at a Indian reservation up in Canada and buying some furniture and stuff. So the trailer's empty at the truck stop. It ain't empty now. Between Mom, the twins and Tiffany, that thing's packed with half of the damn store.

Kevin took his Honda, thing managed to survive the night, but I'm trying to talk him into taking one of the ranger's trucks instead. Kid ain't having any of it, and I'm a bit annoyed. It got banged up pretty good, although rare, Zombies can still be found out here, and we had to blow through more then a few little towns on our way. We didn't slow down much on the way through, so we're not really sure if there was any living in them. We tried calling them on the radio, but no luck.

Those little towns, with there undead did a pretty good job of beating the shit out of the little riceburner. Kevin's pretty upset about his car getting fragged up, and he's trying to beat out most of the dents, or make what little repairs we can out here.

Casey, and Susan were riding in a Chevy Cobalt, but they ditched it in favor of a newer Ram one ton. Unlike Kevin, the ladies decided it was better to be in a big truck, over a tiny ass car. The trucks four wheel drive, and it's got the Cummings diesel in it, so that thing will run till hell freezes over. Plus it's a dually, and got a snowplow on front. The girls wanted to put some sheet metal over the windshield and the rest of the glass. Don't blame'em and we went searching in the grounds keepers garage for just that sorta thing. Figure we can outfit the van, and the ram pretty easy. Not so sure about the Honda, figure the extra weight will just make problems for the little riceburner.

While we searched for the sheet metal, we found the ranger station. Wasn't no one there, and it was locked up tight. My mace made kindling of the door, and soon we were inside looking around. We added a couple more shotguns, and some more ammo to our inventory of weapons. Then we left the place.

We didn't find any sheet metal at the garage, but the things made from it, so we start taking it apart. Yeah, we're even tearing buildings down now, gotta recycle you know. Anyway, we get the Van and the Ram outfitted, and then we come back here to sleep the day away, until tonight.

We found a groundskeeper for the parks department while we were at the garage, an older guy. Well he was happy to see someone alive and not wanting to eat him as you can imagine. We told him what we were up to and he agreed to help us, assuming we let him come along with us.

Old guy's name is Fred, and he's a pretty good handyman from what all we can tell. Doc looked him over, just to make sure he wasn't one of those Mock Zombie's, but he's alive and healthy. Fred helped us get the new Vehicles up to snuff today, and I gotta say, he wields a lot better then me, his beads look professional, where mine are just plain ugly.

After we got the two vehicles set up, we made our way back to the cabins, on our way we spotted a pack of meatbags, beating on a outhouse. Well the only reason I can come up with for why they'd be doing that is because people are inside it right? So we stopped, thinking to help.

Well the noise of our vehicles had already gotten their attention, so they came running at us. Now the first thing I notice about these stiff's is they don't look so bad. In fact except for the dried blood on their chins, it would be kinda hard to tell they were dead. They're fast to, at least as fast as a runner, plus they screech like them, and at first that's what I thought they were.

I raise my M-21, and put one through a stiff's melon, the head explodes and it drops. And that's when things got weird. The damn things stopped in their tracks and jump behind cover, bushes, trees, whatever they can find right? Then they start talking! They told us if we left them alone to get at the people in the outhouse, they'd let us walk away, and not come looking for us.

Yeah, I'm not buying that one either. By this point Stevie and Tiffany are out, and Tiffany's beside me. She pops another one in the head hiding behind a bush. Well it doesn't take them long to realize they're out gunned, so they get up and hull ass out of there. We get three more, but two managed to get away before we could get a bead on them,and we're still looking for those two.

Anyway at the sound of gunfire the people inside the outhouse peek out. When the shootings all stopped, and the coast is clear they come out to join us. To our surprise a pair of Park Ranger's have managed to survive, and they tell us about the things we just killed.

Seems the ones that were after them crave blood. Worse the things are as smart as they were when they were alive, and they remember how to do things. Like use guns, drive cars, shit like that. The Ranger's call them Vampyres, which seems to fit them pretty good. Anyway, Doc checks over the two of them, and then gives us the OK to bring them along.

The ranger's are a couple, a little guy and a tall gal. Seems they live in the park, and are kind of the hippie type. You know, hugging trees, showering in the rain, lets not shave cause that's unnatural? Well the two of them reek with B.O, but other then that, they're OK. They tell us their names are Jennifer and Frank, and we introduce ourselves.

Franks skinny, and not that tall, like 5'6 or something right? He's got dark hair, eyes, and a beard that would make a terrorist proud. Medium set, even for someone as short as him. Guy say's he's in his mid forties, and he's been a Ranger for damn near 25 years.

Jennifer is taller then him, standing next to Frank she looks like a damn amazon, she's just over 6'. She's a brunette, not a bad looking gal, she just doesn't shave those places a woman should you know? She's stacked to, and she's happy to show them to anyone who asks, yeah Stevie asked to see them, just in case you're wondering. Jennifer's younger then Frank, hell she's younger then me, she's Stevie's age, in her late twenties. Jennifer and Frank are the back to nature type like I said, they even own one of those old hippie vans! Frank was quick to tell us we're all welcome to 'experience' Jennifer anytime we, or she, wanted, that whole free love thing you know? Yeah, you can say how cliche now. Jennifer tells the ladies the same about Frank, but like us guy's, none of them seemed too excited about that fact.

Anyway, once we fill them in on the details, they decide to tag along. Yeah, that seems to be going around, life's safer on the move now-a-days, and in a pack anyway, so that's what a lot of folks are doing.

When we got back to the cabins, we told everyone else about our run in with the new kind of Zombie's. John wanted to put up the Intel, even if he doesn't have the footage for them yet. Funny thing is the Ranger Station still has a active internet connection, so after a few minutes, Jennifer agrees to take John up there so he can get online. We're still waiting on them to get back, but they keep checking in over the radio, so they're OK.

Me and Tiffany got a cabin to ourselves, well with the girls, but still, we're alone and it's kinda nice. These cabins don't have power or nothing, but we do have running hot and cold water. Seems the water heater runs on natural gas, and the connections are still active. So Tiffany and I took a shower together. You can figure out the rest for yourself.

I thought I'd feel bad about it, but I don't. I don't know if that means I've given up on my family, or if I've just accepted that this is my new family. Maybe it's both. Not sure really, and I don't figure I'll get it all sorted for sometime yet anyway. I do know that I've developed some very strong emotions for Tiffany and the girls over the past week, not surprising considering the stuff we've been through.

Funny, but I still hope that if Heidi is alive, she's found someone too. I can't imagine going through this new world alone, hell I don't even want to try. Tiffany makes me better, makes me try harder, to keep us alive. I'm not just surviving, I'm building something, even if it is all new and kinda scary. Heidi always thought I ignored my feelings, when I got back from the war she expected me to be all mentally and emotional fragged. She never got that the stuff I did, or saw didn't bother me. I tried explaining it to her, but she just never got it. To her mind, I was suppose to be a mess, and my telling her I was OK, was a cover-up.

But what Heidi never understood was that the only thing that scares me is the thought of her or the kids being hurt. Yeah, I've come close to dieing, I've been shot, stabbed, even blown up once. But I got patched up and kept going. To my mind, that's just what you do. But reverse that, and make it happening to Heidi or one of the kids, and I fall apart. Now that's extended to Tiffany and the girls. I live in fear, not of getting hurt or killed myself, but of something happening to them.

Yet without Tiffany beside me, I think I'd fall apart anyway you know? Damn, I sound like a girl.

We figure we'll reach the preacher's town by sunrise tomorrow. Out here you can do about 55 on the highways, and it's fairly safe. Not sure what to expect in Small Town Iowa, Mom and Dad seem to think we'll find everyone alive, and waiting. In a way they're right, the people of that town will be waiting for us. Just not to say "hi, how you doing," if you get my meaning. But I haven't had the heart to tell them this, after all, I don't want to hear that about my family, so I can't tell someone else that either.

Dad showed me a road map today, and it shows we'll have to exit the interstate. I'm hoping that the way's fairly clear into town. Since it seems that most places only have the automobile graveyards in the direction of getting out of town, we shouldn't hit one of those. But who knows, people were desperate to get outta most towns, and they started going the wrong way if it meant a clear road to escape.

John and Jennifer just got back, guess I'll go out and see what they've discovered. Who knows maybe they'll have good news. Always think positive, otherwise you'll just end up eating a bullet, and that ain't good.

1100 Hours, Second Entry.

John and Jennifer had some good news, or rather it wasn't bad news. Sad to think that constitutes good news now a days huh?

Anyway, they posted our new Intel about the Vampyres, even though we don't know all that much about them. Still, knowledge is power, now a days even more then it was before. John say's he's got a lot of responses to his post, mostly thanks for the heads up.

He also did a video chat with the Witches, making sure they're still breathing and to assure them that we're on our way. He said they're real excited about getting a rescue, but that they left out one very important detail. There's suppose to be a pair of them, but it's more like six. Seems they were a bit worried about our intentions, and didn't want to reveal to much about themselves. I can understand that sentiment, you gotta be careful at the best of times, but now, you especially do.

Anyways they say they'll be ready, they're packing up some of the stuff inside the Truck Stop, and they have a vehicle to drive. They say that the parking lot's filled with stiffs, but that none have gotten in yet. John told them we should reach them by midnight tomorow, and what to look for. He also found out they have a CB inside with them, and he set up a trio of channels for them to monitor. Told them we'd radio when we got within range, and they were happy to hear that.

Well, I'm off to bed, we're going to be busy tonight.


	7. May,11th,2010, Iowa, Alex

1200 hours, May 11th, 2010.

Survivor Total: 62 Adults 26 children.

Today has been insane. OR rather I should say last night was insane. Still not use to this new nocturnal lifestyle, so bear with me. Today we're in a rest stop. Place has showers, power, and we set our tents up on the grass wherever we could. We found a shit load of people today to, and they've joined our merry band.

Anyways we left the park right after sunset, we didn't see head nor tails of any meatbag so we were in good spirits. But as the day dragged on, we found more and more of them. At one point we had aleast a hundred or so Meatbags chasing us. But then we quickly lost them when we hit the outskirts of Chicago. The reports we've heard just don't do the carnage there justice.

Chicago's a big place, and although we were driving around it, we had to still get close. The place is still burning, or rather sections of it are, worse the place has more nexus points and Ley Lines then Detroit did. I see why they made it the capital for the Federation of Magic in the Rifts mainbook, place is freaking exploding with Nexus Points. Worse, those nexuses are ripping open forming Rifts. Unlike the game, these don't seem to be opening to countless worlds, but to a handful of them.

` But they're still opening from other worlds. Today it rained frozen carbon dioxide for about an hour. We could see a massive blue planet through one of the Rifts, and several folks are convinced that it was Neptune. They're betting that the snow and shit was from one of its moons, maybe even it. No one knows for sure. All we do know for sure is that gasmasks are standard gear now.

Besides storms, odd snow, and other such fun things, we've also encountered our first D-bee. D-bee is rifts slang for dimensional Being, aka aliens. An odd little thing, looks like a rabbit, but it can talk and is intelligent. We can't speak its language, and it can't ours, but it talks. Mostly gibberish sounding frag to be truthful, but so far it's helping us. Or well… we think it's helping us, hell it could be leading us to our deaths, who knows at this point right? Guess we just have to hope for the best right now.

We found the Truck stop with the witches, and that's when we realized our mojo slinging ladies have a penchant for understatements. The parking lot was so filled with undead, that we almost couldn't see the damn ground. Things are moaning, screaming, or howling.

That many undead, wasn't anyway for us to get out, so we drove around the place crushing them, or plowing them down with the vehicles. It was kinda funny, it was like plowing snow, except there was blood, meat, bones and guts everywhere. We splattered so many of them, that at one point me and Tiffany couldn't see out of the windshield.

When we finally got their numbers down to something reasonable for us to get out and clean up, we had to watch where we stepped, the ground was so slick from gore, that it was damn near impossible for us to walk around without slipping.

But by then there weren't many of the meatbags left. Tiffany kinda gagged on the smell that many bodies ground into hamburger on the pavement; well the smell was horrible to say the least.

We got the meatbags in the immediate vicinity cleared, and John went up to the door with Doc. Our mojo slinging ladies were pretty happy to see us, and they opened the door. Like Tiffany, the smell made them gag. Doc gave each a quick looks over, mainly just to make sure they still have heartbeats. That done we all moved to get them ready to move out with us.

That took about an hour. Mom was quick to gather up all the personal hygiene products she could get in the store. Doc meanwhile grabbed what medical stuff he could, mostly over the counter medicine and first aid kits. The rest of us mostly grabbed smokes.

The witches introduced themselves of course. We had a fun round of who's who amongst us, and them. There are six of them, what they call a coven.

The oldest is the mother of two of them, her names Lilly, and she's a pretty old broad, even though she could just about be my mom. She's stacked real heavy ontop, and in back, and she's kinda heavyset. Lilly's got black hair, and it's real curly and long.

Her oldest daughter's name is Julian, and she's like her mom before having kids. She's got a huge rack and back end, but she's pretty damn embarrassed of it. She's doing her best to keep her top covered, like she wishes they weren't so large you know? Julian's pretty, and she has a set of pouty lips on her. So far of the witches, her and Lilly have been the two I've spoken to the most. Julian's pretty skinny though, and Tiffany's convinced she's fake. Julian's hair isn't long though, or curly, she keeps it medium length. It's the same raven colored as her mom. Julian's a little younger then Stevie, about 24, or so.

Lilly's second daughter is like her mom, heavy set. She has the same rack and backend as the others of her family. Her name's Rose, and unlike her sister, she's pretty damn proud of her body, even if she is a plumper. Stevie's been smitten with her since we met them. Like her mom her hairs curly, black and long and she seems to have taken a shine to Stevie. Rose is a lot younger then Stevie, she's in her late teens.

Of the three that aren't related Sara's the oldest. She's about Lilly's age, tall, blond and skinny. She hasn't had any kids yet she said. She's kinda medium set, both on top and in back. She was real fond of piercings, and she's got so many it's hard to describe them.

Then there's Ann, who when around the other's just kinda fades into the background. She's a brunette, girl next door type. Medium set, and with medium length hair, she seems to do her best not to stand out you know? She's got a medium top, and bottom, and she wear's these silver rimmed glasses. She's got a couple of tattoo's, and piercings, but nothing real flashy. She's got her tongue pierced, and her naval, and a tramp stamp on her lower back, but you get the impression she got them less to stand out, and more to just fit in and be like everyone else now a days.

Our last witch is hyperactive, she goes by Moon, and she's this skinny blonde thing that talks a million miles a minute. She also likes to sing, off key and very badly, to both her covens, and our annoyance. I figure she's nuts. She's around Rose's age, or a little younger. She's skinny enough that you can see her ribs and crap. Like Sara she has so many piercing's you can't count them all. She however has taken a real liking to Greg, and she's been riding with him and Red, to which Red has cussed me a few times for.

The coven has a big van, and has loaded it down pretty good. We're going to have to armor it up some, it has a lot of windows, and they have this little trailer on the back of it. It's one of those luggage trailers you use to see, made from plastic and kinda egg shaped. We added some gas cans to their load, and then filled everyone's vehicles up.

With them loaded up, we got back out on the highway, and made pretty good time. We had to go a ways out to get around Chicago, but it was worth it. We used a lot of little state highways, or county roads. Most of them were pretty clear, but there were a few bad spots. We hit Iowa around 0230 in the morning, after that it was only about a forty five minute drive to Podunk, as I call Mom and Dad's town.

Well once we reached Podunk we realized there was a problem. Cars are everywhere, and the roads completely blocked. We couldn't get through with our vehicles.

Well Greg says he knows a back way into town, that should be clear, and we got four by fours so we shouldn't have any problems going down the road. We don't figure the Vans are going to make it down the road, and we don't really want the kids going with us into some crazy ass zombie infested town right? So we leave the vans at the start of the little dirt road we're gonna go down. We leave the Rangers, along with John and Maria, and Gabe and Vicky. The plow truck just wouldn't fit down the road, and we figure it's better to leave it. And well the road's way to rough for a hippie van to go down. We left the witches to, even though a few wanted to go with us. Told them to look after all the little ones. Lilly was a little upset about staying behind seems her and her daughters are keen to show us they can pull their own. We tried to impress upon them the importance of protecting the little ones, and I guess they finally realized it to.

We also unhooked all the trailers, in case you're wondering, it's not generally a good idea to take trailers out into the backwoods if you can help it. Since nearly every vehicle we have has a trailer on the back of it we figure all they'll do is just hang up the vehicles and that's not good.

BJ grabs her hounds, and sets the others to guard Maria's van, which has all the kids in it right?

Well kid was right, and the road was clear, well mostly, there were a few cars and trucks on it, but we were able to push them out of the way. So then we get to Podunk, that's when the fun really started.

Podunk before the outbreak was a town of 10,000 people. Mostly a farming community you know? They raise corn, wheat, barley, and oats, that kind of stuff. Well that was almost two weeks ago, seems the Wave, as the outbreaks officially called, got here a lot sooner than we did. Made a merry mess of things to.

The church is towards the center of town, and we're calling on the radio for anyone still alive in town to pick up their ears and listen. Well we got a answer, a guy and girl claim to be held up in the school, in the office and they need rescuing real bad. Well that damn hero bug done bit us all real good, so we tell them we're on our way.

We got to school, and there's meatbags everywhere. I mean everywhere, their moaning and the runners are screeching. Well we clear a path towards the door that plow/ram on the Humvees really proven useful. Anyways, I got Tiffany, Mom and Dad in my Humvee with me. Stevie's got The twins, Kevin and Frankie with him.

Once at the door to the place, we jump out and start to seize and hold. That's dirty, hard fighting let me tell you. Well Stevie yells for the couple in the office to get their asses outside and into the Humvee, so we can get out of here right. He even sees them, they run out of the office, and out the door, and Stevie even commented that the girl wasn't that bad looking. Stevie should have been paying more attention, cause they run up right on him, but he figures they're just scared.

Well when the couple get outside that's when the trap was sprung. See our couple isn't alive, their a pair of Vampyres and they bite down on Stevie good. The chick practically tore his throat out, before we could get her off him. Thing we didn't notice in our first encounter with the vampyre kind of zombie is they have a set of fangs that are razor sharp.

Anyway, Stevie's bleeding like a stuck pig, and we notice that the meatbags listen to the vampyres, cause they're ordering them to hold us while they drain us dry. The damn meatbags move to obey them and we notice several more white faces looking at us from the windows of the school. Seems there's a whole pack of the damn blood sucking zombie's in there and they all want a drink from our veins.

I ended the vampyre couples days. Shot the guy in the back of the head as he started to get back up with my Cobra, and then smashed the bitches head with my mace, making a mess.

Well the twins managed to get Stevie back into his Humvee, and they yell for us all to run. Lisa jumps in the driver's seat, while Amy does her best to put all that reading up she's done on first aid to the test right? The Twins get the hell outta dodge first, and Lisa just about hits me as she's taking off. But she cleared us a path back to our own ride, and we jump in real quick. It didn't take me long to start up the Humvee and follow after.

Well we plowed through the meatbags, heading back the way we'd come and heading for the church. Stevie's bleeding out pretty good, but Amy's managed to staunch it enough to give him a prayer of living.

Then we see the church and Mom lets out a sob. The place is on fire, and a small group of survivor's are doing their best to keep the hordes at bay. They aren't getting over run because of the fire, which the meatbags are scared of. That big of a fire makes a pretty big gap on the lawn to park our own vehicles in. We stop and Doc and the nurses pull Stevie out of the Humvee, and put him in the ambulance.

Doc tells us he needs a few minutes to try and get Stevie patched up, and we gotta buy him that time. We take up firing positions around the ambulance as the meatbags come towards us. The survivors on the lawn all kinda blink at the sudden rescue, and Dad quickly figure's out who of his congregation is left alive.

The little group are all that managed to survive the outbreak. Four guys, and about twenty women. Each is armed with some kind of gun, and a hand weapon of some kind. Most have shotguns, or pistols, and hatchets, crowbars, hammers, or machetes.

Two of the guys are armed a little different, ones a big black guy called Rhino. He's bigger than me, and just as muscled. Guy was also in the Corps, and he was a heavy weapons operator. Well Rhino's gotten a hold of a M-60, most likely from one of the national guardsmen that was in the town when the outbreak happened.

The second guy we call Toasty, dudes a pyromaniac. He's got this homemade flamethrower on his back, and is wearing a fireman's firefighting cloths, you know the flame resistant jacket and pants? He's got the respirator and helmet on to, and he's sending out jets of flame, laughing like a demon. He's got a set of Fireaxes, and after torching the zombies, he happily starts swinging on the ones that manage to get close to him. Toasty was once a flamethrower operator in the army, but was discharged for psychological reasons. Then he became a firefighter, but like his army career, that didn't last long before he was kicked out for the same reasons. Or so Dad tells us.

The Meatbags made a circle around us, we were parked on the lawn of the church, as close to the fire as we could get, and not get singed ourselves. BJ's hounds are going nuts, barking and howling, the dogs hate the undead more then we do, and it's driving them crazy to be this close to the meatbags.

Well one of the vampyres walks past the others, he keeps eying the fire, and you can see he's scared of it, but he's doing his best to control it. Anyway the guy's got a girl with a chain around her neck, she's snarling and her eyes are glowing red.

The Vampyre laughs and kicks the chick in her ass. Sending her sprawling onto the ground. She jumps back up, and growls at him like a dog or wolf would have. She stays down on all fours mostly, and she's naked. We can see that she's been chewed on real good, and she's got dried blood, and gore stuck to her chin, and all over her chest.

That's when the Vampyre decided to introduce himself, and explain what's going to go down.

Dude tells us that this is he and his packs town, and we living aren't welcome, except as dinner. He tells us that he and his pack are gonna drain us dry, then he's going to give our corpses to his dog. Then he says after we raise he'll keep us as pets.

Needless to say we ain't exactly keen on that idea. I put a bullet between his eyes before he knows what happened and smile as I see the black mist that comes out when you geek a zombie. Tiffany geeked the dog-girl, and she drops.

But some of the Vampyres have guns of their own, and they start shooting back now. It isn't long and we're replaying the last shoot out at the old OK corral. We're dropping stiff's pretty quick, and I'm tagging every one of the Vampyres with a gun in their hand that I can see.

Needless to say the Vampyres didn't care for that much, and they took up shelter or cover wherever they could. Still, I drilled more then a few of the fraggers before they got smart.

Anyways, after the vampyres run, the rest of the meatbags press in on us, but with the fire, they aren't willing to get to close to us. A few however either are to stupid, or able to get a hold on their fear and get in close. These we all notice are a different than the standard meatbag. They're all like the vampyre guy's dog-girl.

Let me tell you the dog-girl like zombies throw the idea that zombie's aren't really interested in eating people right out the window. Seems this kind does indeed like turning people into happy meals, and these ones are hungry enough that the fire doesn't keep them back. They're a lot faster than the standard stiff to, about the same as a Runner, and they're like wolves in that they always hunt in a pack. Thing is though they'll eat the corpses of other zombie's once you waste them, but they prefer fresh, living meat. We call these ones Flesh eaters.

Needless to say the things got a bite out of us. The fighting soon goes from a long distance duck shoot, to a in close melee, and pretty soon Tiffany and I are back to back with a small pack of flesh eating zombies around us. Tiffany's got the katana in her right hand, and one of her glocks in the other, and I'm doing the same with my mace and revolver.

She pops one stiff in the face and takes another head off with her sword, then she fires off the rest of the magazine into the closing ring of zombie's around us. Like her I pop off the entire cylinder in my revolver, then holster it, and start swinging for the fences with my mace.

Doc has Stevie locked away with him in the ambulance, and Melissa and April are in the front, waiting for Doc to tell them they can drive off. The Zombie's start rocking the ambulance, there's just to many of them for us to clear them off it. Doc yells he's just about got Stevie patched, and we need to start thinking of our exit.

Well I yell back we'll get right the frag on that. Not like we were busy or anything. The fighting got worse after that, and it blurs into just a long bout of swinging, chopping and lashing out at this point. We all got bit several times, or slammed against the vehicles or something. Once Lisa got slammed against the ground, and I thought she was dead the way her body crunched on impact. I smashed the zombie that had slammed her, and then reached down to feel for a pulse. It's there, and still strong, but she's gonna be feeling that hit when she wakes I thought.

Things were looking real bad and I'm thinking we've just bought the farm you know, when we hear this loud whining noise. It takes us a second to figure it out over the screaming, and moaning of the horde around us, but then we see lights and zombie's parting like the red sea before Moses.

Apparently some living have survived in town, and now with all the stiff's after us, they're making a break for it. The survivor's, which was about thirty of them, are on dirt bikes, ATVs and rhino's, you know those little utility trucks you see hunters and construction companies using. They're really just an ATV with a little plastic truck body an the frame. Anyway, they're trying to repay our distraction by providing one of their own. They're armed with sledgehammers, baseball bats, chains, crowbars, sawed off shotguns and pistols, and they got their vehicles weighed down. Despite the size of them, ATV's can run down Zombie's easy enough except unlike a truck they don't stay down. And the Rhino's are freaking heavy as all shit.

Well the horde turns, and starts screaming and moaning at the sight of even more people. That bought us enough space to make a clearing back to our vehicles, and we jump in and take off after our rescuers, making a bigger path with the plows. With the new arrivals, it was like a clown car with us getting in the vehicles. It isn't long and we're clear of the center of town, and other then a few runners, and some flesh eating zombies, their isn't any following us.

We head back out the way we came, and soon we're back on the dirt road we used to come in on. We're telling those left at the highway turn off, to get ready to run over our radio. And Doc's telling us he's got Stevie stabilized but he needs blood. Doc asks me if me and Stevie have the same type, which we do, and he tells me we're going to have to give him a transfusion.

Well it isn't long after that we reach our buddies at the turn off. I hop out, telling everyone to hook the trailers back up. Then I head for the ambulance, to let Doc take some blood for Stevie. April and Melissa get out, and start helping those who are most wounded, patching them up as best they can while Doc works on Stevie still.

Well our rescuers are all real excited to see medical care available, they jump off their rides and start yelling that they need help themselves. Melissa and April tell them to get in line, and they'll get to them. They tried to explain that once the Doc got done with Stevie, he'd have a look see. They tried to explain that they're nurses and they can do simple stuff like stitches, and set bones, so stay calm and they'll get to it, but let them do the triage first.

But that isn't good enough for them, seems more then a few of them are hurt bad, and they don't give a damn about Stevie needing the Doc's attention until he can get the transfusion started.

Worse they're all a bunch of stupid, scared, teenage kids, oldest isn't prolly more than in their mid-twenties. They got guns, and numbers, and they're thinking they can just force Doc to treat them. Not good.

A guy grabs Melissa and tells her to get the Doc out here now, they need medical attention, and he doesn't give a rats ass that Doc's busy. Well Melissa's already nervous as all hell from our recent battle in town. And all these new people yelling and screaming at her with guns in their hands doesn't make it any better. Without thinking Melissa sticks the kid in the heart with the knife she's got.

Kid ain't wearing anything capable of stopping a combat knife, and he drops like a ton of bricks, bleeding like a stuck pig, and already dead. His buddies freak out and start shooting, it isn't long before we start shooting back. I left the ambulance and I'm screaming for everyone to stop shooting, and calm down for a minute.

I prolly could have got everyone calmed down, but then they fragged up real good. They shot at Maria's van. Bullets hit the side of the thing and start bouncing all over the place. More than a few rounds punch through the side of the van, and we hear screams from within it. Seeing this Tiffany screams, every one of ours see's the van with our kids in it getting shot up, and something just snaps. Unlike the teens we're mostly armed with military grade assault rifles, and everyone clicks their M-16's to auto.

Out in the open like they were, with no cover, and cocky because they have us outnumbered, they didn't notice the sudden hail of fire that came from our guns until half of them are dead or dying. By then it was too late to go back, and we finished the little bastards off before they can shoot at the kids again. Soon as the last of them drops, we all run to the van to make sure the kids are OK.

Opening the door we see blood on the floor and walls, and Tiffany loses it. The kids are crying, scared out of their minds, and we got Tiffany pulling the kids out screaming a kind of mindless yell you know? It takes us a few minutes to get everything sorted out, and when we do we find that none of the kids are hurt, just scared. So then we're wondering about the blood, and it's then that we notice all the dogs lying on the floor.

See the kids wanted to play with the dogs while we were gone, and Maria didn't think it safe enough to let them out to play with them. So she had John bring the dogs into the van. When the bullets started flying the dogs went nuts, trying to protect the kids, and accidentally shielding them with their furry bodies.

After that BJ's pretty upset, the dogs are like her kids and seeing them dead sends her over the edge. She screams and runs over to where a few of the little bastards that killed her dogs are still twitching and trying to crawl away into the brush. She unloads on them with that Spas-15 of hers at point blank range.

Well needless to say the few that were injured are more then dead now, and BJ puts a few more rounds into a few of their corpses that are just twitching. I yell for her to stop wasting ammo, and Malone gets over to her and manages to calm her enough to stop shooting.

After that we stood for a few minutes before Doc yells he needs me to give Stevie blood or he ain't making it. I let go of Tiffany and the girls, and run to the ambulance, telling everyone to finish getting ready to go.

It took about fifteen minutes for Doc to finish the transfusion. During which everyone's getting stuff ready to go, or being stitched up. After that Doc say's that Stevie should make it, but I shouldn't drive, to much blood loss between my injuries and the transfusion. Doc seemed real depressed, I figured it was over what just happened, so I tried to explain things to him, but he cut me off.

Doc understands why we did what we did, and he says, in his own words the teens were just too stupid to survive. But he tells me I gotta keep an eye on everyone. Killing civilians is like a mind fragging ninja in your head. At first, in the heat of the moment, you're ok. But then at night you remember the look on their faces and that haunts you he says.

Funny, to my mind the teens weren't civilians, truthfully except for the little ones, I can't think of a civilian anymore. We're involved in a war, a war for survival of the entire species. In any war there are casualties. Wars are fought and won, and that means to win, you have to kill someone else. That might be an unliving walking corpse, or it might be a living breathing person threatening you and your family. In the end, you'll find, you either kill, or are killed. To me, all we did was eliminate some of the stupidity from the gene pool, thus ensuring a stronger humanity.

I know, that makes me sound cold, and I suppose you're probably thinking I'm a murdering bastard. If you are, that's OK, but I suggest you learn to think different. If you've survived this long to be reading this, then you've most likely done some bad things as well. You have to, just to survive. And if you haven't, if you can still think in terms of pre-apocalyptic morals, don't worry to much about it. You'll be one of the undead soon, and it won't matter anymore to you.

After Podunk, we drove until we found a Rest Stop. There wasn't any stiff's out here, but we found a few people. A couple of truck drivers, four prostitutes, and a pretty big family that had been on vacation. They've been living here, to scared to move on, yet terrified that the stiff's are going to find them. They've been living off the food in one of the Semi's, as well as the vending machines.

They don't talk much to me, Doc and Mom say I scare them, so I don't know much about them. Doc say's they're in good health.

Our two truck drivers are young, mid-twenties. They're skinny guys, became truck drivers out of high school, or something like that. They had with them a pair of Lot Lizards each, that they picked up at a truck stop down the road. When the Zombie's started eating folks, they hauled ass outta there, and ended up stopping here.

Lot Lizard is Trucker slang for prostitutes, in case you didn't know. The four of them are all bleach blondes, skinny, and look like they're suffering from withdrawals. They range in age from 16 to 26. If they sober up, they might be pretty, but right now they're not looking the best.

That family we rescued are a middle aged couple, and their six kids. The couple is about my age, not sure of their names, since I scare them and they try to avoid me. They have that Wisconsin look to them, and from their accents, that's where I'd say they were from. Their kids range in age from twelve, to about two.

Damn I'm tired. I'm heading to bed, Tiffany's already asleep in our tent, and the girls are likewise. I'm going to go curl up with her and pass out for the night, err, day, oh you know what I mean.


	8. MaY, 12th, 2010, Missouri, Alex

1200 Hours, May 12th, 2010.

Survivor Total: 72 Adults, 33 Children.

We're in northern Missouri today, staying in another rest stop here alongside the highway. After we woke up last night, we left the rest stop and drove pretty much non-stop for the night. With the exception of Gas Stations and such. Our survivor's from Podunk took the ATV's, and Dirt bikes that the dumb asses were riding. We've been picking up trucks here and there as we go as well. Most people don't have much urge to be left out in the open riding while we're on the move.

When we left the rest stop, our Truckers, whose names are Gypsy and Skids, took their trucks. Gypsy's truck was hauling a load of canned goods, so we have Spam, corned beef and hash, and freaking green beans coming out of our ears. Skids truck was hauling a bunch of TV's and DVD players. Laugh now because we dumped everything from Skids truck. We haven't got any use for TV's or DVD players right now.

With Skids truck empty, we've been loading stuff up from Gas Stations, and such. We've also been loading stuff into Gypsy's truck to boot. No D.O.T regulations, means we're loading them up well beyond what D.O.T says is safe. Funny thing is the trucks have the power and brakes to haul a lot more then what D.O.T said was safe.

We've been finding people as we go, but there are so many people now that I can't tell you who half of them are. Instead we've kinda separated the caravan into two groups. A militia and civvies. Mom and Dad are looking over the civvies, and I'm looking after the Militia.

It's working pretty good so far, Mom has given every one of her civvies' a sort of chore, and everyone seems to like having something to do. It keeps them from just sitting around and being scared, or thinking about love one's they lost.

This brings us to a funny, yet somewhat serious problem. Well, truthfully it isn't serious, but you'd think it was the most serious thing ever the way people are acting.

Seems the women folk are running low on razors and shaving cream. Poor Mom has to ration them out, with each lady getting two razors, and one thing of shaving cream a month with our current supplies. Now some of the womenfolk had those already, but enough of them didn't that Mom has to ration them. Tiffany ran out of the one's she brought along, and she's telling me that I'm a'have to get use to her being a bit hairy. She said with two razors she can either keep her leg's shaved, her snatch, or her pits, my choice. Well, if you're like most guys, you know how prickly women's legs get, so I hope you understand why I told her to shave her legs.

I find the whole thing funny in a way, I mean, here we are trying to survive in a world gone completely insane, and the women are all worried about their body hair! Maybe it's just me that see's the humor in it, I don't know, maybe I'm just not seeing the overall picture. I know Tiffany's worried I'm not going to find her as attractive with hair growing in those places that normally she don't let it grow.

But as funny as I find it, poor Mom is really stressing over it. She keeps pulling me to the side and telling me about how everyone's asking her for them, or bitching at her when she came up with the rationing idea. I told her to send anyone with too many complaints to me, and I'd take care of it. That made her smile and she had to get up on her tippy toes to kiss my cheek. Then she told me her real names Star. Turns out her parents were both hippies themselves. She doesn't mind not shaving, in fact she even told me in a whisper that she likes not having to shave anymore, and she always thought it was a pain in her ass that she had to. Course she told me not to tell Dad, whose real name is Charles that. Or that she said ass. That made me laugh and I told her that her secret was safe with me.

We've been finding wrecked police cars alongside the road as we go. We've searched most of these, been finding mostly shotguns, and emergency road kits. We've also ran across more than a few National Guard vehicles, Humvee's and transport trucks mostly. We've taken to looting these, or just taken the whole truck when their still drivable. When we find M-16's, or other military grade weapons, we collect them, for obvious reasons. Most of the guardsmen dropped the things where they were standing when the meatbags fell on them. We've found more than enough ammo with the weapons to keep us armed without having to break out the reloading equipment. We're giving the Militia members the military grade hardware.

Set up a supply Sargent, to hand out weapons and ammo to both the civvies' and the militia. Our supply Sargent's a crazy guy, reminds me of that gun store owner in The Simpsons. Guy knows his guns though, and he's been sorting the brass, as well as keeping our ammo mag's filled. He also repairs, and sets up the civvies' weapons for them, since not a lot of them know how to use gun's properly. Guy's name is Gary, and he's middle aged. How he survived the whole rise of the zombies I'll never know, guy lost his legs in Iraq, and he's pretty much stuck in a wheel chair. Guy's about my age, maybe five or six years older than me.

He's got a wife, and two girls. Like him, his wife's a gun bunny, and she and her girls have joined the militia. His wife's freaking smoking hot though. She likes to run around in a cut off shirt, tied up under her tits, so that her stomach shows. Seems she spent a lot of time at the gym before all this happened, as the woman's got a six pack! She's pretty skinny, and although she hasn't got the most on top, what she has is good enough. She's got red hair that she keeps tied up, when it's down it hits her butt. She looks like a red haired version of Shakira to be honest. She's about the same age as Gary, so prolly like five or six years older than me. Wife's name is Cindy, and she's damn near the best scout in our band. She must have wanted to join the army or something, but unfortunately for her, she got knocked up at like sixteen or so.

Gary and Cindy's daughters look just like Cindy. And like their parents, they're a couple of freaking gun bunnies. When we found the four of them, they each had more guns then Stevie, and he carries like nine of the damn things!

Anyway the girls are younger versions of their mother, Felicity, the oldest, is a damn good shot, and we gave her a Remington 700. That's the civilian version of the M-24 Sniper system. I showed her a few tricks for being a better sniper, but the girl's a freaking eagle eye as it is. Give her six months and I wouldn't wanna find her shooting at me.

Her sister, Serenity who's only like a year or two younger than her is likewise a little eagle eye, but the girl has a serious love of shotguns. She's got herself a Saiga-20. Which is basically an AK-74 chambered in 20 gauge shotgun caliber. Thing has a twenty round mag, and can fire three round bursts! It's insane. Serenity and BJ have quickly become buddies, as the two of them both love assault shotguns, and both love dogs. Serenity is working with BJ now to train the hounds we have left, as well as the few we've been finding.

Cindy, Felicity, and Serenity all volunteered for scout duty as soon as I asked for them. Cindy has her daughters somewhat trained in basic military protocol, even if she wasn't ever in the army. The three of them make a damn good team together, they've got a keen set of eyes each, and they find shit that others would overlook.

Current orders are that only the militia gets the military grade weapons, while civvies get the commercial ones. Mainly because the Assault Rifles are still in short supply. We're collecting our brass, so we can repack it later. We passed an order that to get new rounds, you have to turn in the empty brass. Works pretty good so far.

We've organized a scouting party like I said, made up of militia troops on Dirt Bikes, or ATV's. We're using them to scout ahead of the main body as well as act as a rear guard. The caravan stretches out a bit, we're damn near a mile long now, and getting longer each day. We've handed out radios, and what little body armor we've recovered here and there.

We've also organized our militia members into four squads. With me, Stevie, Rhino, and Cindy each commanding one. I still have overall command of the militia, and we're coming together pretty good. The witches wanted in on the milita, so we divided them up more or less evenly. Cindy and her scouts didn't need the mojo right now, so we didn't add any to her squad. Put Julian and Lilly in my squad, Rose and Moon are in Stevie's squad. The last two, Sara and Ann are in Rhino's squad.

Each squad has a kinda of specialization to it. My squads the assault squad, been showing them how to storm buildings, and enemy emplacements when we search through buildings and such.

Stevie's set his squad up as the basic grunt squad. They're not bad, and he's training them up in our down time, not that we have a lot of it. And not that he can do much work from a cot, Stevies still laid up from his wounds, but I'll get to that later.

Rhino's our heavy support squad, we've given him all the machine guns, and other heavy weapons, and he has Toasty in his squad to. Rhino's the only one that can put up with the crazy guy.

Cindy's, like I said is our scout squad, she's showing them all what to look for, and how to do their jobs.

A lot of people are injured in some way or another. Most of its little stuff: bite's and scratches, or bruises. Lisa got a broken rib from last night's body slam by a meatbag. Girls lucky she's got a bubble butt, else she prolly would have broken her tail bone to.

Anyway, Doc's blowing through the supplies we have pretty fast, since most people have wounds that need to be redressed constantly. Not to mention we're using up what painkillers we have. Everyone's hurting in some way, and we're doing our best to remain mobile, and stay healthy. Doc wants us to find a safe place to rest for a few days at least, longer would be better he says.

Our hippie couple and the witches tell us that we can find a lot of the medical stuff we need in nature. Not surprising that either would be into the holistic medicine thing you know? Doc's into it as well, but he still prefers the modern meds over the herbal home remedies he says.

Mom, still not use to calling her Star, keeps track of the supplies, with the exception of weapons, and Doc keeps track of the medical gear. They've been making wish lists, as well as essential lists of supplies. Poor Star is hoping we find some razors, or electric shavers soon, so she can get a little less flak from people.

She has to ration damn near everything to be honest. She has found a woman who used to do catering, and she has her set up as the head cook. Star's had her plan a menu for the week, although to be honest, it's pretty much the same thing day in and day out. Don't know the cooks name, but her cooking's pretty good, even if it's just beans and spam we're eating. Star and Cookie, guess that's a good name for her, have to set portions for all meals. Funny, but people aren't bitching about that as much as they are not having razors, which just seems hilarious to me. Star damn near beat me when I started laughing about that earlier at our nightly meeting.

Yeah, we started having nightly meetings, mainly me, Star, Doc, Gary, and a few others that Star's put in charge of certain vital areas. Like Cookie. Lilly, Julian, and Tiffany also are always going to be there. Since we've picked them up the witches have proven to be a fragging well of wisdom, and I take back any doubts I've had about them beforehand. Julian and Tiffany are especially getting along well. Which is funny, I figure with the way Julian looks, Tiffany would be jealous of her, but she hasn't mentioned her top since yesterday. The three of them often have little insights into what the others are thinking, a lot like Star does, that I'd be lost without them. I can run the militia, but I'd be hopelessly lost with the civvies' if not for my four advisor's. I just don't think like a civie does, over a decade in the Corps does that to you.

Anyway, we've set up a series of rationing, mostly for water, food, and hygiene items. Julian said that with her underarms getting hairy, she's got to have deodorant, and she's pretty sure that the other women feel the same way. I was waiting for Star to go ballistic about the mention of body hair growth, and the lack of razors, but she just nodded. Seems the Truck Stop's and gas stations we've been finding have a better selection of deodorant then they do women's razors. Because Star said she had enough Deodorant for everyone to get three sticks a month. She could even let the ladies pick the kind they wanted, although the selection was limited.

Julian and Tiffany don't figure they'll need three sticks a month, and neither does Star, but she thought it might cheer some people up to hear that we have it in a good supply.

Lilly and Julian both suggested that Dad give a nightly or well daily sermon considering our nocturnal life now a days, which surprised the shit out of me to be honest. They've both been trying to educate me on the in's and out's of their religion, mostly they just answer questions that pop into my head as we're going along. I admit Wicca makes damn near no sense to me, but I'm trying to keep an open mind. Key to their beliefs is that they believe in a Goddess, I'm thinking the earth Goddess, but I could be wrong, the two of them have mentioned Isis, and Artemis a few times, so I could be wrong. The gamer in me remembers all the game stats for those goddesses, and I try like hell not to chuckle when they're talking about them. I told them about my gaming habit, and they both laughed, they're gamers to they say, but they admit that the RPG designers got the stats wrong a lot, as well as what the goddess is in charge of.

Anyway, Lilly and Julian think that since the vast majority of our band is Christian, or some variation thereof, that they'll appreciate a sermon in these dark times. Star and Tiffany suggested that we do them after dinner, and that me and Stevie play a little for everyone. Star said she'd find if we had any other musicians or singers in our caravan. Well, I told Star that I knew Tiffany could sing, as could Julian, both having spent the night singing while we drove down the road the night before.

Star thought it was a great idea, until Tiffany and Julian turned beat red and said singing in front of me and Lilly was one thing, but in front of everyone else was something entirely different. That made Star laugh and she told them she'd sing with them. Well that got Lilly to decide she'd try it to, as long as we played some older country songs, like Johnny Cash, or Willie, Lilly's not fond of a lot of new music.

That made Star laugh and she asked if we knew any Simon and Garfunkel, or Grateful Dead. Which made the rest of us laugh; cause Lilly was like that would work to. I told her we knew some Dead, but that me and Stevie weren't real big on the old hippie music. Well Star and Lilly both made a face like 'you suck' and crossed their arms. This made us all laugh even more.

Then Doc told us how Stevie, our most critical case is doing. My little brother's not doing so well, and Doc's hoping we can find a blood bank or something. He's doing what he can for Stevie, he asked around until he found a couple of other people with the same blood type, but like me, most are running low on blood as it is. The damn meatbags seem to enjoy making holes in us and letting out that precious liquid if you get my meaning.

Doc also tells us that we have more than a few diabetics in the group, and they're running low on insulin. We're going to need to locate some, and get it fast, he's been keeping real close tabs on everyone's insulin supply and he doesn't figure we've got more than a week at best. He and Amy, whose been hanging with Doc for a while now, have made a list of medically needed items, and insulin is high on that list.

Well from what we can tell few towns have power out here, so we're not sure where or when we're going to find the needed items. Doc is pretty damn insistent on it, and I passed the word to Cindy and her scouts to locate a hospital with power ASAP. She understood the danger as much as the rest of us, Hospitals are where the dead first rose and the whole Zombie plague began, so we know going into one is going to be a hard prospect. We're hoping to find a small county hospital, but who knows. I have a feeling we're going to lose a few people when we go in.

We've had a few suggestions from some of the militia for body armor. Someone came up with the ideal of using leather riding suits, like what street bikers use to wear. They're made from thick leather, and ain't no way a Zombie's gonna bite through that, still gonna hurt, but hey. I admit the idea of getting something to protect Tiffany from getting hurt is an idea I'm fond of, so we've told the scouts to keep an eye out for a bike shop as we travel.

With our band having exploded population wise, we're finding tents, and other forms of shelter are coming up short. Tiffany and I have a big tent, it's one of those huge family tents that has the privacy screen in the middle, and then two smaller tents coming off it. The main cabin, when not divided can sleep like eight people, and the little kid cabins can sleep like four kids, or two adults. Well Tiffany and my tent is pretty much the norm for the ones we got. When we raided the outdoor supply store, we all grabbed the same one. Tiffany and I wanted some privacy from the girls, just in case we decided to play, and the other's likewise thought the same as us. We grabbed a few extras but not nearly enough for everyone.

Well Star told us about the shortage of tents, not that we didn't know about it, but we just didn't realize how bad it's was. Star had put together a list of where to put people, and we looked it over. Today me and Tiffany have ourselves, Star, Dad, Lilly, Julian, Gary, Cindy, Felicity and Serenity in our main cabin, the twins are in the side cabin, and our girls, and Star's youngest two with them in the second side cabin. Yeah, it's a tight fit. We're packed in like sardines in a can in here.

Even better we're short on blankets and pillows, not that it's cold, but the weather's a little chilly. So we're huddled together in groups, trying to keep warm and get comfortable. The way we're laid out is kinda funny, me, Tiffany and Julian are all sleeping next to each other, me and Tiffany gave up our pillows, so Julian and her are gonna use me as a pillow. Star is going to sleep above our heads, with Dad closest to the wall beside her. So I'm gonna be using Star as a pillow, which is funny, woman's too skinny to be a pillow.

Anyway, we got Cindy at our feet, with Lilly above her head, and Gary against the wall on their side. Felicity and Serenity are against the wall in other spots, and everyone's taking turns using the side cabin that the twins are sleeping in to change into their night cloths.

Cindy's and her girls are grumbling because they normally sleep naked, but Dad nearly hit the roof when he heard that idea. Star and he must not sleep in the same bed, because he's grumbling about having to sleep next to his own wife tonight. Keeps mumbling about it being sinful or something like that.

Julian and Lilly likewise sleep in the buff, but they've asked me to borrow one of my jerseys. Tiffany normally sleeps in just my jersey, but she's wearing a pair of cheeky shorts tonight with it. Apparently Dad didn't think that Star's nightgown covered enough of her, because he grumbled until she borrowed the last of my jersey's to use as a nightgown. Soon as Lilly changed, she came back in and lay down, falling asleep pretty fast. Julian and Tiffany are sitting up talking to Star and Cindy as I write this, and all four of them keep trying to sneak little peeks at what I'm writing.

The women picked bad shirts to wear, let me tell you. Jersey's aren't the most 'veiw stopping' clothing on could wear. I mean basically, I'm surrounded by topless women here, since I can easily see through their shirts.

I guess in a way that's a good thing, since it kind of distracts me from worrying about Stevie.

Although he's still active, more or less, he's drinking more. Which when combined with his injuries, and his mental trauma, means he isn't doing so great. I keep wondering what I can do to help him, but nothing comes to mind. Worse Doc says he's talking to himself now….

Well maybe not talking to himself. Doc's pretty sure he's talking to someone, just no one that we can see. Doc admits he isn't the best Psychologist, but even he recognizes schizophrenia. From what Doc's told me, it sounds like Stevie's talking to his dead kids. That in itself is enough to scare the frag out of most of us, especially me. Stevie wasn't the most stable guy, mental wise before all this shit happened, but it looks like he's getting worse.

But now…..

Well, how long before he goes completely whacko? What happens when my little brother goes so far off the deep end that he has to be put down, like some mad dog?

That sounds so harsh doesn't it?

I gotta…gotta think about something else for a while, this thing with Stevie is…is bad.

Ok, just checked out Julian's rack, that seems to have cleared my head some. Well, maybe not really, but at least I can't think now, to distracted.

Oh! Our D-bee friend, the little bunny guy? Yeah, this is humorous, so I'm gonna run with it for a bit. Anyway, the kids have taken to calling him Peter, you know, like Peter Cotton-tail? Yeah, cute I know. Anyway, things learned its nickname. Anyway, it runs around now, saying 'Peter' in English. Funny, cause it's got this accent that makes it sound all British. Some of the kids are working on teaching him English. They show him an item, and say its name repeatedly. Like Box, or gun, or toy you know? Anyway, things got hands on its forepaws, and it's teaching them it's language. Funny thing is the kids are picking it up pretty fast. I heard a bunch of them running around, speaking in the gibberish tongue the rabbit uses. Kinda funny.

I think it's funny, maybe I'm alone in this, but I think it is.


	9. May, 13th,2010, Missouri Camp, Alex

1300 hours, May 13th, 2010.

Survivors: 84 Adults (81 humans, 1 bunny, 2 elves), 33 Children (31 human, 2 elven).

Current Temperature: -64 degrees Fahrenheit. +/- 10 degrees. (My thermometer doesn't go lower then -40, but it's not reading even that inside the tent, so I'm just guessing.)

Frag its cold today! It shouldn't be this cold, it shouldn't even be close to being this cold, its freaking May, damn near summer!

But it's freezing outside. If the cold wasn't unbelievable enough, it's snowing. Or icing… or fragging something! Fourteen inches in the last hour, with no sign of letting up. Even better huh? There isn't a cloud in the sky. The stuff is literally just appearing over our heads, falling down in a sheet of white. We can't move around much, it's too cold. We're all huddled into our tents, most of us with as little clothing as possible, huddled together, using body heat and blankets to survive. Our vehicles won't run, not in this cold, hell half of them the freeze plugs have blown out.

To late today we realized we were near a Rift. Not to close mind you, it's still miles away from us, in St. Louis. But it's there, and that's where this blizzard is coming from. Cindy and her scouts got close enough to be able to see the thing…..

It's scary as all frag, Palladium was right again, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, is one massive super-Rift. Currently it's open to some iceball planet in another dimension, possibly even ancient past earth. We don't know for sure, but we know that this snow and ice is actual water, not frozen carbon dioxide, or some other shit, just old fashion ice.

And it'll be old fashion cold that kills us. Not zombies, not demons. No we're going to freeze to death. How fragging lame is that?

Things are bad right now, not only is it spooky, seeing a blizzard pour out of a sunny sky, but the air itself is so cold. It ain't right, it ain't natural. It shouldn't be this cold, it shouldn't be snowing…. It just shouldn't.

As to other things besides the cold, and snow? We're camped in the woods, North West of St. Louis, about twenty some miles outside of it to be exact. The place is crawling with Meatbags, which seem immune to freezing. Perfect huh? The living are freezing to death, but the dead just keep on hunting us. There have been no less then fifteen full scale assaults in the last few hours. And I mean full scale assaults, dozens of meatbags, coming from all angles.

We're pretty much out in the open here to, no cover, no defensible positions, nothing. Just us, ice, snow, and trees. The grounds frozen solid, so we can't dig in and half the vehicles are shot, so we can't just try to drive west. We're stuck here, and that isn't a good place to be.

We're trying to drop some trees around us, form a sort of crude wall/fence type defense. But our chainsaws won't run in the cold weather, so it's all by hand. The work is slow, painful, and torturous. Hand axes, and saws mostly. We're doing what we can, trying to form bonfires, but it's so cold we can't even get our lighters to work to start a fire. The few fires we've made are sputtering, not burning like they should.

But we're trying to warm our chainsaws by those fires, at least get them warm enough to start running, and then work from there. It's working some; we can run them for a few minutes at best before they freeze up again. Fuel lines' mostly freezing up is the problem. Not that any of us can be out there for long either, ten or fifteen minutes outside, away from a mass of near nude bodies and you're frozen.

Oh, and as if that wasn't enough, the temperature is dropping still. It's a guessing game as to when the temperature will level out some, but so far people are predicting we'll hit the negative hundreds before sunrise tomorrow. This means we'll probably all die in our sleep. If the damn Meatbags don't get us first.

Hang on, I gotta go warm up, can't write for long today.

1535 Hours second entry.

Ok, so it's been a couple of hours, and I'm warm again, well more or less. Now, to stop bitching about the cold and snow, since we can't do anything about either, let me tell you some of the other things we've encountered today/last night during our travel.

First off, why are we so close to St. Louis you ask? Well simple answer is, we need medical supplies. Insulin, blood, bandages, you name it, we need it. St. Louis and the metro area surrounding it has a lot of hospitals, and doctors' offices, and we need those supplies, or half of us will be dead anyway, assuming we survive the cold tonight.

We also need more tents, more food, and other basic supplies. Not to mention, we received a call from a group of survivors. Apparently they found a safe place on board a River Barge. They have the thing parked in the middle of the Mississippi river, just outside the down town area. Of course that puts them smack dab in front of the massive Gateway Arch Super-Rift, but there's about two dozen of them…

Or there was.

Seems they're not doing so well in this cold either. Although our radio's pick up a lot of static from the Rift, we can still talk to them some. Anyway, it's at least twice as cold there as it is here, and several of them have frozen to the deck of the barge.

We've been talking to some women there on the Barge. She and her's have decided to join us, probably because they seem hell-bent on getting themselves killed. She told us a story about finding a Coast Guard, and Navy warehouse in the main port here. Anyway, place was filled with zombies, like several hundred of them. Well one of her fellow survivors, a guy named Johnny, decided to cut open the doors to get into the place right? So he and another guy get a cutting torch out, and cut through the lock. Not hard really you know? Well anyway, zombies see the flames of the cutting torch and they do all they can to stay away from them.

So what does genius Johnny do? He turns off the cutting torch...

No really! I'm not making this shit up. He turns off the cutting torch at the bottle right? Can you guess what happened next?

If you answered, ' Zombies over ran and killed him and the other guy.' you'd be half right. The Zombies ran over the guy doing the actually cutting, while Johnny ran like a little bitch with a skinned knee. Yeah he totally baled on his partner.

Well, as if this grand frag up wasn't complete enough, Johnny then leads the zombies, which are easily several hundred, right back to the barge. At the time, the Barge was docked, and Johnny led them all right onboard, screaming like a little girl the whole time.

Great guy huh?

In his defense I suppose I should explain that he's stupid, not so much a cold hearted murdering bastard, just dumb as a box of rocks. He never stopped to think that fire frightens the undead, or that they'd follow him.

The cost of his stupidity? Extremely high. Four nurses, a doctor, and another half a dozen survivors that were working to cover the Barge's deck. Not to mention the poor smuck who got devoured by the horde when the torch was cut off. So say nice dozen and a half?

With the current human population low, and estimated in the low million range worldwide, every death is a blow to the survival of the species. Plus we're still dropping like flies.

In short humans are going extinct. If you've read these, you already know that. I've tried to record what I can, when I can. But I only know so much.

And that brings me to another new development, remember bunny boy? The kids call him Peter, little white rabbit looking thing that can talk and has thumbs? Yeah the D-bee, remember that term? Come'on people, you gotta keep up with the terminology here. Palladium Books has been right about Ley Lines, nexus points, magic and Rifts, so we're using all of their terminology.

Anyway, well the bunny thing isn't the only non-human in our group anymore. Today we found a family of elves. No, not Santa's elves, those are gnomes in case you're not a gamer and didn't know. No, these are Lord of the Rings like elves. If you've never seen the movies for LOTR's, then you're hopeless.

For the rest of you, I suggest you pick up one of Tolkien's books. Especially the one, can't remember the name of it, but it teaches you Elven, because ironically, that's the language they speak. Lucky for us, Stevie's a LOTR fanatic, and he could speak elven before he learned Spanish, which is kinda a perquisite for life in the southwest.

Anyway, we found the elves in the woods, which makes me laugh. I mean I'm a gamer at heart. If you've ever seen a game book, most often a Sword and sorcery type fantasy one, you've noticed that the female characters always wear a minimal of clothing, have enormous breasts, perfect hourglass figures, and are stunningly beautiful.

Once I use to chuckle at those, oh sure I liked the sight of a stunningly drawn woman, because I firmly believe that there's no better example of art then a woman's form. But I always found it funny that a warrior woman would wear such a scanty amount of armor that would do little to protect one in battle.

Well gladly I can say that female warriors wear very similar armor to their male counterparts, or at least the one we found does. She's dressed in a suit of leather and chain armor, that while tailored to her….well, hourglass figure, still fully covers her flesh.

The elves are from a primitive world, basically you typical fantasy world. Wizards, goblins, orcs and dragons are as common as rocks, but no one can contemplate a firearm, or a printing press. They spend most of their time with Stevie, since he's the only one that can speak their language.

The elves are a married couple, and they have kids. Describing them is hard. But I'll say Tolkien was close in his idea of elves, Platinum blonde hair, pale skin, tall, long pointy ears, and practically ageless. Elves are apparently a race of supermodels, more or less. From what we can tell so far, elven males are extremely….. Woman like, androgynous is the term I think. If not for the rack on the girl, we'd all be hard pressed to pick which was female and which was male. Ironically, though, unlike typical fantasy 'mythology' elves aren't very stuck up. In fact from what Stevie says, they hate violence, and although both are armed, they hate using their weapons. They were delighted to be found by us. Stevie says this is because on their home world, elves live with humans exclusively, and relay on them for protection. So finding us was a god send for them.

Damn it's cold. I'm going to go warm up, I'll write more in a bit.

1840 Hours third entry.

There was an alarm, we had Meatbags everywhere… We lost about a dozen people, I don't even know their names…I don't think anyone did…How sad is that? A dozen people dead and no one even knew their name?

That's disturbing…

We can't bury them, the grounds frozen solid, and we can't burn them, fires are too precious a commodity right now. Throwing a body on a fire right now isn't a good idea either; the smell would make most of us sick.

But there's some good news…I guess its good news. The Super-rift has changed locations, wherever it opened to has changed. From the Barge people we've learned that it's currently open to space. Not a planet, just the void of space. Luckily when a rift opens it only lets things into this world, not the other way around. I suppose you could walk through it still, that's how it works in the books, but no one's stupid enough to try walking through to the void of black space.

However, the Rift presents problems even though it isn't thankfully sucking our atmosphere out. Radiation, solar radiation, is pouring through the rift right now….. The dozen or so survivors on the barge are now two, the women we've been talking to, whose name is Ally, and that frag-up Johnny. Downtown St. Louis is full of Ley Lines, and when the sun set, the Rift shifted its location. Radiation began to pour out, and it fried the people that were moments before freezing to death.

Not that it isn't releasing cold either, believe it or not the temperatures still dropping, with no sign of stopping. I'm sure some scientist could tell you the exact temperature of the black, but I can't. Regardless, freezing cold and radiation is pouring out of the Gateway Arch Super-rift. The irony of this is, half the down town area is on fire now. Ally and Johnny managed to get away from the area, but they have horrible sunburns. Not to mention they're suffering from severe hypothermia. Both are in the medical tent now, under Doc's treatment.

Doc say's it'll be a week or more before we can move them, assuming the weather breaks. The Snow's stopped, but we're betting it won't warm up anytime soon.

That means we need to start thinking of a way to settle here for a bit, take a breather. I'd like to move away from the Super-rift. But that doesn't look to be an option. We have to repair the vehicles before we can drive them out of here, and that's going to take several hundred work-hours. Our other option is to march out of here. This means leaving behind a lot of the gear, and more than a few people. I know most of the children would never make it.

And that isn't an option. I know that isn't tactical thinking, it's sentimental. But it just isn't an option. The children are our future, we just need to make some defensive works, and we can hold off the Meatbags.

Besides the things have Ley Lines to feed off of at night. The things are everywhere to. The Mississippi River seems to be just a giant Ley Line, at least at night. Right now, with the sun set, and the Ley Lines emerging, the Meatbags have all moved off to feed.

Stevie seems to be stabilizing, or well physically he is at any rate. Mentally he's going even further off his rocker than normal, but that's to be expected I suppose. He's still talking to ghosts, but now he breaks up that to talk to the elves some, and our two new arrivals. Funny as it sounds he wants to hang Johnny for getting all those people killed. Well to be truthful he wants to have form a court and trial him for dereliction of duty, and mass murder. This would be fine, since Stevie wants to do a military style court martial, but the only thing that's stopping me from going ahead with it is…

Stevie's talking like he's a pirate.

Let me repeat that, just so you understand the full implications of it. HE TALKS LIKE CAPTIAN JACK SPARROW FROM PIRATES OF THE FRAGGING CARRIBEAN!

No, he's not just joking around, Stevie is completely convinced he's Captain Jack…or Johnny Dep, not really sure which one he thinks he is, but he spends about two hours a day as Jack Sparrow/Johnny Dep. He also consumes a massive amount of Rum…lots of rum. Frag I don't even know where the hell it's coming from, but he somehow has it. Captain Morgan, off brand copycat brands, hell even generic no name 'rum', doesn't matter, him, when he goes all 'jack sparrow' he has a bottle of rum. We tried hiding the rum from him, but he just stumbled around screaming 'where's all the Rum?' in a really bad British accent.

And of course, as the Captain of the Pirate ship the 'Black Pearl' he wants to be the head of the court Martial, and he's already decided to hang the idiot.

Don't get me wrong, I think we should hang the idiot that killed all those people to. But what I don't like is playing along with Stevie's increasingly odd mental instability. Doc says that it will only speed them up, and increase them in duration. This in case you needed it spelled out for you, is bad. Don't get me started on his new nickname for his 'Harem' of women….

Which is another topic I need to get to…..

How to start it? Ok, simply put, we have more women to men. A ratio of close to five to one Doc says. That's just women over the age of 18, not including the underage ones, but in case you needed that information, the same applies. To put it simply, more women have survived then men, which while may not be a cause for alarm; it is when the topic of long term survival and rebuilding come up.

Stevie, in his insane and um…odd way has already began to work on that problem. See Stevie has already taking to fragging the shit out of several women, and he's open about it. Off the top of my head, he's got Melissa, April, Rose, and Lilly. He's working on adding Ally to that list as I write this, hell he's probably already banging the snot out of her as I do. Now no, I'm not jealous, but that doesn't mean others aren't.

And ironically it's not many of the men that are jealous. On top of the cold, the snow and ice, and the constant meatbags assaulting us, I've had to break up nearly a dozen fights. Women are getting into knockdown drag out fights to snag one of the remaining men, and they don't particularly care if that man is with someone else or not.

Yeah, that should be funny, I thought the same thing to, until you stop to consider that we're fighting to survive here. I understand that a lot of it has to do with the situation; people want some sort of stability, some sort of companionship, some kind of intimate relationship. They're scared, worried and anxious all at the same time. And as more than one women has told me today, our chances of survival are dwindling, and their instincts are taking over. Half of the women don't care who they get pregnant by, they just know they need to get so before the last male is killed, dies from from the cold, or some other illness, and there are none.

Doc says it's a survival instinct, one that hasn't been needed in generations, but that's still hardwired into females and males even. With our population so low, and dropping, people are feeling the urge to mate like never before. He also won't rule out that the Rifts, Ley Lines, and all the radiation, both known and unknown, not to mention chemicals, and such that these things spew out, might be causing it as well. Regardless, it's become such a problem that Doc wants to have a meeting, and assign mating groups.

Now two weeks ago, this would have been a man's wet dream. To be given five women and told to frag the hell out of them at will right? Hell it probably is for most guys even now. But Doc's brought up a serious issue, one that he wants me to enforce with an iron hand.

What is it you ask?

Doc's afraid that with a limited number of genetic lines, due to a limited number of males, we'll begin to inbreed in a generation or two. To prevent that he wants me to enforce a rule, or rather law that prevents mating outside of your…group? I guess that's the term. And what would the penalty for breaking this little taboo be? I mean let's look at things realistically, the average husband has cheated on his wife at least twice by the end of his marriage, women at least once. We've all heard the problems with marriage and divorce rates in the good ole U.S of A right? Not to mention the infidelity rates and such. How is a society that has long accepted this as the norm going to handle literally being stuck with one, or in the case of men five people for life? Not well I imagine, and that's why Doc wants me to inform everyone that mating outside of your group will be punished harshly.

How harshly? Death.

Yeah, straight up death penalty. Fragging harsh huh?

Of course the alternative is inbreeding and extinction for the whole species, so I guess when you look at it like that the death penalty isn't so harsh huh? Oh, I forgot, he wants to apply that to both parties of the infidelity. So if you cheat on your spouse with someone outside your mating group, not only do you get whacked, but the person you cheated with gets greased. Hows that for Wrath of fragging God punishments?

But Doc is convinced that this is the only way to ensure that we can keep track of our genetic lines. He's confident that in three or four generations, this won't be needed anymore. He's theory is that by then, the zombies will mostly be gone (IE rotted away) and that humanity's population will be able to support the single male/female couple again, and group marriages won't be needed. But as I pointed out, by then our decendants will be used to the group thing, and it'll be normal, with that, they won't see any need to change it. Ironic huh?

Now as strange as it sounds, Doc's theory has got some strong support, from, again ironically the oddest place. Our Preacher, Dad, Charles, whatever he wants to go by, supports Doc's plan. With the Preacher moving about giving his support for the plan, and passing it on to people, it's getting a lot of support.

On a personal note, Tiffany's giving me this angry look, and she's huffing a lot. Obviously she doesn't like the idea, and I understand that. But with everyone looking to me to lead them in this merry little band, I have to do what I think will ensure the greatest number of us surviving. I also have to look at the long term survival of the species. Not to mention morale amongst the troops and all that shit.

So I'm going to have the meeting, not tonight, we have to much work to do, even with the cold. We need to fortify our camp, and prepare for the dawn, because when the Ley Lines disappear, the Meatbags are gonna be on us. And somewhere, between making sure we don't kill each other, and keeping us safe from the Meatbags and the environment, I need to get some fragging sleep…..


End file.
